Into the Woods
by Qzil
Summary: When Castiel's bride is kidnapped just weeks before their wedding, he embarks on a quest to rescue her. The two of them soon learn that the stories the peasants tell are true, that the woods at the edge of the kingdom are ruled over by a two hundred year old witch. Lost, alone, and hunted, the two must find a way to escape Crowley before the forest swallows them for good.
1. The Way is Dark, the Light is Dim

Crossposting a bit from my AO3 account. This was originally written for the Megstiel Big Bang in 2015.

Warnings for this fic include: Body horror, gore, minor character death, and mild sexual content. There will be specific warnings for a few of the chapters.

The cover art was done by the ever wonderful, patient, and talented msdoomandgloom over on tumblr.

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Castiel was convinced that there was nothing in the world that made people light up like a wedding. There were other celebrations that made people happy, holidays and birthdays and pregnancy announcements, but Castiel loved weddings most of all. Holidays were nice, but always cloaked with official business. When he was younger, birthdays were clouded with the sadness of knowing that his father or siblings were aging, and one year closer to leaving home to start their own families or dying. Pregnancy announcements and childbirths always had a faint air of sadness around them, doubly so after his mother had died birthing his youngest sister, Hannah.

But weddings meant new beginnings, meant joining with a person you loved, or would hopefully grow to love, and working toward something together. He'd loved watching his older siblings get married, loved seeing the joy in their eyes as they stood at the altar and joined hands with their intended. He loved the moment when the groom lifted the bride's veil and the moment the rings were slid onto their fingers. Most of all, he loved seeing the joy in their faces after they had their first kiss as man and wife.

He'd longed fiercely for his own wedding day ever since he'd been betrothed. And now it was finally here.

Well, almost. Today, he and his brother and sisters would begin the two week journey to his intended's home, where they would marry and begin their new life together in her country, Ennom. There was a small tinge of sadness at leaving his family's home in Araboth, but he had known his bride since they were children, and had been aware of their engagement since he was twelve and she was ten, so he was not afraid. He knew her family as well as he knew his own.

In two week's time he would be at her home. Two days after that, Prince Castiel Novak would wed Princess Megan Masters, joining their two kingdoms together in an alliance that would last throughout the ages.

At least, that was the official version. For Castiel, it meant that he would marry the girl he'd grown up falling in love with.

"Someone's got that dreamy look on his face that means he's naming his future children again," said a happy male voice. Turning away from the window, where he'd been watching as the servants loading the wagon, Castiel saw his elder brother and king, Gabriel, striding toward him.

"No, not this time," Castiel told him. "Just thinking."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "You know, if it were up to me, I would've married you two ages ago, if only to get you out of my hair."

"Too bad Azazel wouldn't consent to that," Castiel grumbled. Meg's father, Azazel, was staunch in his decision not to have his daughter marry until she turned eighteen, Ennom's official age of majority. He'd also been willing to break their engagement at any time Meg wished, insisting that she should have a say in choosing her husband. His father had never offered such a deal to him, and neither had Gabriel.

But Meg had chosen to go forward with the marriage. She had pulled him aside during the celebration of her eighteenth birthday and kissed him moments before her father had dragged them out of their hiding place, shoved them to the front of the party, and announced that their engagement had been confirmed.

"He has his reasons," Gabriel told him, moving to run his fingers through his long, dirty blonde hair and sighed. "Their laws are… different."

Castiel nodded. He knew that well. In Meg's land, the firstborn inherited, regardless of gender. In fact, Meg had a twin brother, Tom, who was younger than her by ten minutes, meaning that she would be the one to take the throne when Azazel died.

Which meant that, despite being a sixth son with no hope of sitting on his father's throne, he would be a king.

In addition, because he was marrying into Meg's family and not the other way around, he would be shedding his name and taking hers. He would leave his home as Castiel Novak to become Castiel Masters.

"That doesn't mean I've liked the wait," Castiel said. "We've been betrothed since we were children. Father and Azazel could've easily married us then, and simply waited until we were old enough for the marriage to be consummated."

Gabriel shrugged. "Azazel's mind is hard to change. Meg is the heir to his throne, and he loves her. I never forced any of our siblings to marry, either, after our father passed."

Castiel glanced over at his brother, remembering that Gabriel had not been born to kingship, either. Their eldest brother, Raphael, had perished in the cradle, setting up their other brother, Lucifer, for kingship. Their parent's third son, Michael, had joined the faith, believing that he had received a calling from the Lord himself. Gabriel's twin, Anna, was female, and therefore unable to inherit when Lucifer had been killed in the same hunting accident that had taken their father shortly before Hannah had been born, leaving the kingdom to Gabriel.

But Gabriel had taken to it like a duck to water. He and his wife, a wealthy merchant's daughter named Kali, along with their two children, had thrown themselves into the good of the kingdom together. For a while after Lucifer's death, Castiel had been worried that Gabriel would break his engagement to Meg, but Gabriel had simply shrugged and allowed the agreement to stand, and had even suggested that they marry the two of them early to seal the alliance.

Instead, Castiel had been sent to live with Meg's family for what he considered to be both the best and worst year of his life.

"Well, you only have to wait for two more weeks," Gabriel said. "That's not that long."

"You didn't even have a formal wedding," Castiel reminded him. Gabriel had always been rebellious, and once he and Kali decided that they wanted to marry, he'd gone behind his father's back, snuck out of the castle, and had simply spirited her away. By the time the king had found them, Kali was so swollen with their first child that it would've been impossible to deny their union. It had been a huge scandal.

"Well, I would've had a formal wedding, if our father had allowed it. So now you get one." Gabriel reached out and clapped him on the back. "You ready to leave?"

Castiel nodded, smiling. "I will miss you."

"You'll still see me," Gabriel promised. "Just not as often. Besides, we've got two whole weeks together!" It was true. While Kali, their cousin Balthazar, and the children were not attending Castiel's wedding, Gabriel, Anna, and Castiel's younger sister Hael would be making the journey with him, and would be there to celebrate the beginning of his new life.

As they began the short walk to the courtyard, Castiel noticed that Gabriel was moving slowly, forcing him to slow down. After a few moments of impatiently waiting for his brother to hurry, Castiel realized that Gabriel was giving him time to take the last walk through his home. Giving in, Castiel absorbed every detail; the clean, strong stone that made up the hallways, the high, tinted windows that allowed natural sunlight to flow in, and the rich, red rugs that covered the floor and muffled footsteps. Suddenly, he longed to take a final turn through the gardens where he'd spent so much time playing with his siblings and mother as a child, and even a few times with Meg, when she had visited. The gardens were a place of peace, and comfort.

But he did not have time.

When they finally emerged into the cobblestoned courtyard, Castiel pulled back his shoulder-length hair and bound it so it would not get into his eyes while riding. When they were younger, Meg had suggested that he grow his hair out to match hers, so he had done it. Meg had quickly let her hair grow longer than he was comfortable with wearing, though, nearly past her ribs, but he had found that he enjoyed having longer hair, if only because it meant that Meg would play with it more often, braiding and brushing it for hours while they talked during their visits.

After two failed attempts his sister, Anna, came over and did it for him, tutting all the while. While and Gabriel shared the same round, honest face and the same mischievous twinkles in their eyes, their similarities ended there. Gabriel's eyes were a dark brown, while Anna's were hazel. Anna's hair was a shining, burning copper, and Gabriel's was a dark blonde, nearly brown.

And, unlike Gabriel, Anna had never gone out of her way to prank him. She'd done it to her older brothers plenty of times, slipping spiders into their soups at dinner, placing frogs in their wardrobes, and hiding the laces of their boots, but never to him. She'd always been kind, protective, almost as if she was trying to take over the role of their mother once Naomi had passed.

"Too excited to even do your own hair, brother?" Anna asked him, the corners of her lips twitching as she tried to suppress a smile. "Perhaps I should've sent my maid to you this morning."

Castiel shuddered. Charlie was a lovely young woman, but talkative. Besides, she and Anna seemed to be almost attached at the hip some days, with Anna dragging the girl with her everywhere she went, and he would not want to separate them, if Anna felt so attached to her maid.

However, he kept the suspicion that Charlie was the reason that Anna had never married to himself. Gabriel wasn't one to force his siblings into marriage, and if Anna wanted to grow old with her maid by her side, that was fine with him.

"Don't make fun of me, too," he begged her. "Gabriel's already done it."

Anna patted his head, causing the lace on the sleeves of her forest-green gown to bounce against his hair. "I think it's sweet."

Hael poked her head out of the carriage window, impatient. "Are we going to go or not?"

Anna sighed and reached up to brush her sister's coal-black hair behind her ear. "You'd think it was your wedding you were going to with how eager you are."

Hael narrowed her ice-blue eyes and frowned. "I've never been more than a day's ride from the castle. I'm _excited._ Besides, I might meet my future husband there."

"You're too young," Anna and Castiel said in unison. Hael rolled her eyes.

"I'm sixteen. Plenty old enough."

"If you guys are finished fighting, there's been enough delay. We're ready to go," Gabriel interrupted. "Cas, get in the carriage."

"But-"

"In the carriage. Otherwise you'll ride too far in front of us and we'll lose you."

Grumbling, Castiel held the door open for Anna to slide into the compartment with Hael, preparing to follow himself, when a horn sounded from the top of the wall. Pausing, he turned toward the gate and saw a ragged man atop a chestnut horse heading toward them. Gabriel shouted to the guards in the watchtowers, but after a moment Castiel broke away from the carriage and rushed toward the gate, recognizing the rider.

"Gabriel! It's Tom! Let him through!" Castiel shouted. The men by the gate hesitated, but began to raise the bars when Gabriel nodded to them. Tom didn't slow, but barreled through the entrance, skidding to a stop just as Castiel threw himself out of the way. Tom swung off the horse just before the animal collapsed under him, sides heaving and eyes rolling in its head. Castiel ran toward his future brother in law and seized him before Tom could follow the horse, attempting to steady him.

Tom looked worse than Castiel had ever seen him. Meg's twin was normally well-groomed, his hair neatly trimmed and his face clean-shaven at all times. He immediately sent any torn clothes to a seamstress, and bathed almost every day. Now, he smelled, and looked, as though he'd been riding hard for days without stopping. His tunic was torn in several places, stained with sweat and dirt and blood, and his lower legs were filled with scratches. His beard was heavy on his face, and there were dark circles under his eyes, while dust coated him from head to toe.

"Somebody bring some water!" Castiel bellowed. Softening his voice, he helped Tom over to a bench in the courtyard and sat him down. "What happened?"

"Thank God I got here before you left," Tom gasped. Castiel winced in sympathy when he heard how rough Tom's voice sounded. "Cas, there's been an accident."

Castiel swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"

Charlie ran into the courtyard and held a skin of water in front of Tom's face. Gently cupping the back of his head, Charlie urged him to drink. "Slowly, prince."

Tom allowed Charlie to tilt his head back and slowly pour the water into his mouth, washing away the dust of travel, until he gently pushed her away. "No more. Castiel, there's been an accident. Meg's missing."

Castiel felt his knees go weak. Trembling, he tried to keep his voice calm. "What happened?"

Tom shook his head. "We don't know."

"How can you not know? Did she… did she leave? Willingly, I mean? Did she vanish?"

Tom shook his head again. "We don't think so."

Castiel nodded slowly. "Okay. What happened? Talk slow."

Tom took the water skin from Charlie and took another small sip. "She was hunting. You know about the traditional wedding gifts in our land?"

Castiel nodded. In Meg's kingdom, there were three traditional gifts that could be exchanged between a couple. The first was a locket with a lock of hair or some blood or fingernail clippings from your intended, so the couple would always have a piece of each other with them. Then there was a piece of some animal, usually a fur or stag antler or even a whole stag, to signify that you could provide food for your partner's household. The last gift was some sort of weapon, to show that you could protect the other person. Most people gave one of the gifts, most commonly the locket, but as the princess, Meg would be expected to provide all three.

"A few weeks ago, she and her escorts rode out to hunt. We expected them to be gone a few days. It was her bridal party, you know? It was expected that she would spend the week hunting and camping and drinking with her friends before she rode back. But she didn't. Father thought to give her a few more days, simply thinking that the hunt had either been unlucky, and they were staying to catch something, or the hunt had been very lucky, and it was taking a long time to haul their catches back. Or that they were very hungover and moving slowly."

"That wasn't it," Castiel said flatly.

"No, it wasn't any of those things. Father waited two days before sending a party after her. They didn't find her."

"Her escorts?"

Tom swallowed hard. "We found some of them. What was left of them."

"What do you mean, what was left of them?"

"I mean they were scattered in pieces. There horses were gone, and the men and women… we found the heads, and some of the innards. That's all. Their heads were sitting in a row, right at the edge of the forest."

"Has your father mounted a rescue?"

"It wasn't someone who took her, Cas. It was some _thing."_

"What do you mean?"

"We found what was left of Meg's party at the edge of Hangman's Wood."

Castiel's throat suddenly went dry. Hangman's Wood was a seemingly small forest located near an abandoned village in Meg's kingdom. Seemingly small, because the few people who had wandered into it and survived had claimed that the wood was a huge maze that one was unable to escape from, and filled with supernatural horrors. Local legend claimed that it was haunted by the spirits of the men who had been condemned to die in the trees there. People had been known to vanish near the wood, never to be seen again. At one time in a while, travelers who were courageous enough to camp near it claimed that they could hear blood-curdling screams coming from the trees.

But he knew that Meg paid no mind to such stories. Her escorts, though, would've prevented her hunting there, which made him wonder how exactly she had wound up being dragged into the woods.

"You believe such stories?"

Tom nodded. "I do."

"Did any of her escorts survive?"

"Ruby and Benny. They rode ahead, to set up camp. When Meg and her party did not catch up, they rode back and found the heads. They met Father's party on the road when they fled."

"They did not even try to look for her?"

"Ruby's pregnant. She should not have gone in the first place," Tom growled, defending his half-sister. Ruby was a bastard, true, but Meg and Tom had never thought of her that way, and had always insisted on including her in their games. She'd been raised alongside them in the castle, and Azazel had treated her no differently from his legitimate children.

"I understand. Benny was doing his duty."

Tom relaxed. "Yes. But Meg is still gone, and we've no hope of finding her. Father has been trying to put together a party to go into Hangman's Wood and search for her, to bring her back dead or alive. But he has forbidden me to go. With Meg childless and missing, I am his heir. If something should happen to me, we have no one."

"I have to be with that party," Castiel told him. "I have to."

"I know. That's why I rode out and told you. They've left already, but I thought you'd want to know, or be there when she returned. Meg will want you there, if they find her."

"Stay here and wash, and join me on the road once you've recovered. Gabriel will give you one of our horses so yours can rest. The thing looks half dead."

"It may already be dead. I pushed her too hard, to get here in time." Tom hesitated and looked down at his hands. "This isn't your fight. If you want to stay behind, or call off the wedding, I understand."

"Your sister is my betrothed. I want to find her," Castiel growled, offended.

Tom sighed. "Father said you'd say that."

Gabriel came over then, and knelt in front of them on the bench. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Meg's missing. They think someone took her, but I understand there's been no ransom demands. I have to go. I need to join the search party that's finding her." Castiel looked over to where Anna and Hael were peering out of the carriage window. "We can't take everyone. I can make the trip faster if I'm alone."

"We'll keep Tom here. The girls can I can take care of him until he's well enough to travel," Gabriel promised. At his signal, Anna and Hael quickly exited the carriage and rushed over. Castiel noticed Hael eying Tom curiously.

"He needs a bath," she declared. "Probably some sleep, too. We'll have Charlie make up a room and some of the servants heat some water."

Tom let himself be handed over to the women without protest, but not before he leaned over and hugged Castiel tightly. "Be careful, brother."

"I will," Castiel promised. Tom nodded once, clapped him on the shoulder, and allowed Hael and Anna to help him toward the castle. Hael did not look back, but Anna did, a slight frown on her face. Castiel turned away from her and grabbed Gabriel's arm.

"I'll need some food, and our fastest horse."

.

Castiel stumbled toward Meg's home a little over a week later, tugging the horse behind him. Like Tom, he had barely stopped, and was covered in dust from head to foot. His hair hung matted around his face, windblown and tangled and soaked with sweat, and his whiskers had grown shaggy, the wiry black hairs obscuring his upper mouth and strong jaw. He hoped that Azazel would recognize him.

Apparently he did. The king met Castiel in the courtyard, took one look at him, and pulled him into a hug.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said gruffly. "They didn't find her."

"The search party's returned, then?"

Azazel shook his head. "Their horses returned. One of them had an arm tied to the saddle. Whatever took her apparently doesn't want to give her back."

"I have to go."

Azazel locked eyes with him, and Castiel had to fight the urge to flinch away. The king's eyes were a strange, pale yellow, and they had frightened Castiel as a child. Even now, when he was a man grown, he was still unnerved by them. There were times when he was convinced that Azazel could see right into a man's soul with those eyes.

"You love my daughter," Azazel said quietly. It wasn't a question, but there was still hesitation in his voice.

"Yes."

Azazel nodded once, and then began to lead Castiel into the castle. "You'll need weapons, and provisions. Son, you might die."

"I won't. I'll find her."

" _Something_ murdered my daughter's hunting party, and something murdered the people I sent after her. My youngest and her lover barely escaped, and only because Benny forcibly dragged Ruby away."

"Ruby wanted to go look for her, then?"

"Of course she did. But if we don't find Meg, and whatever it is comes after Tom as well, Ruby and that baby in her belly are all that's left of my bloodline."

"I thought you forbid Tom from going after her."

"I did. That doesn't mean he'll listen." Azazel sighed heavily as they passed through the open doorway. "Hopefully I'll be able to keep a good enough eye on him. If not…"

"You don't know if she's alive," Castiel realized.

"If she were dead, whatever or whoever took her would've left her head there with the heads of the others. But if they still had her, they would've sent a ransom note by now." Lowering his voice, Azazel leaned closer to Castiel's ear. "Listen to me. Those stories they tell about Hangman's Wood? They're true."

"They're nonsense. There's no such thing as ghosts."

Azazel shook his head and gestured to his eyes. "How do you think this happened? Do you think I was just born lucky? No. I hunted there, when I was a lad, not much older than you. I was one of the lucky ones, though. I got out of there. I was lost in the woods for two weeks with no food, and barely any water. I don't remember much. But that place is dangerous, Castiel. Meg's scrappy, so I've no doubt she'll survive, but I don't think what's in that woods will let her out. Not without a fight."

"You probably hallucinated from lack of food and sleep. There's no such thing as real magic. Not like how you describe it. So-called witches are nothing but healers and people who sell love potions to gullible villagers, or say that they can tell fortunes."

Azazel shook his head. "Cas, you're either dumber than I thought, or just plain rigid in your thinking. But you'll see. I've prepared your usual room for you and I had the manservant lay out fresh clothes. There will be provisions and a fresh horse waiting for you in the yard after you change."

"Weapons?"

Azazel gave Castiel a small smile. "Meg had your wedding present made some time ago. I've already sent a man to fetch it."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to see the gifts before the wedding. Bad luck."

"Not in this case. In fact, it might be considered good luck. Love always trumps any other kind of magic. Even the most evil."

Castiel did not comment, but simply headed for his tower room. Azazel had given it to him when he was thirteen and had spent two weeks visiting with Meg's family. It was just far away from Meg's room to be considered proper, but close enough that the two of them could've snuck out for nighttime visits and playdates if they wished. Meg and Tom's playroom, smack between the two chambers, had given them a place to meet, and they had taken advantage of it often.

He found the fresh clothes in his room, along with some water, a razor, and a small looking glass. He washed quickly, using a damp rag to rid his body of the dust and sweat of travel before he quickly shaved and dressed again. He contemplated cutting his hair for a moment, lest he come across an enemy that could use the handhold, but discarded the idea.

He frowned at the clothing on the bed, but pulled it on, anyway. It was rough, likely homespun, and less rich than he was used to. But, he reasoned, it would help him blend in with the populace. If whoever had Meg was targeting those of noble blood, being dressed as a peasant might help them escape their notice.

Rough as it was, the clothing was still nicer than half the things he had seen the poorest in his kingdom wear. The leggings were made exactly to his measurements, and fit snugly and warmly around his legs. The buff colored tunic was thick and warm as well, and fell nearly to his knees, mostly obscuring the dark trousers that had been provided for him. The belt, while undecorated, was good quality leather that molded perfectly to his body. He had no doubt that Azazel would have a warm cloak waiting for him in the courtyard as well.

Taking the other way out of the castle, he paused by the door to Meg's room, hesitated for a moment, and pushed it open. He'd spent many nights there as a young child, the two of them huddling under Meg's blankets and whispering secrets to each other, but he had not entered her private chambers since he had turned fifteen was almost a man, deeming it improper.

It had not changed much over the years. Her large, four poster bed had been updated to suit her current favorite colors, the blankets having gone from a childish pink to a deep purple, and there were more books in the bookshelf, but other than that, it was exactly the same. Her dolls were still lined up on their shelf in the corner, her wardrobe was the same large, black thing that he had hidden in during games when he was a child, and her writing desk was small, probably too small for her to sit in comfortably.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Castiel jumped and whirled around, prepared to fight, but relaxed when he saw that it was only Ruby. She stepped into the room behind him and gave him a small smile, but he could see the worry in her dark eyes. She looked as though she had not bathed, brushed her hair, or slept well since her sister had gone missing, her long, dark hair falling in tangles around her face and her skin far too pale for her to be halthy. She wore only a dark-red dressing gown, the belt cinched so tight around her waist that he could clearly see the small bump at her stomach.

"Sister," he greeted.

"I'm not your sister."

"Not yet."

She eyed him for a moment before she moved around him to sit on Meg's bed, her fingers lightly stroking the blanket. "We used to share a bed, you know, when we were younger. We'd whisper silly secrets to each other, and daydream about our future husbands and lovers, and gossip about the things going on in the castle. Just a few weeks ago the two of us were laying here after the candles were snuffed out, talking about what to name the child."

"I'll bring her back," Castiel promised.

"You'll try," Ruby argued. "That's all I can ask you to do. I'd go with you, but Father and Benny think I should remain here, for the child's sake."

"Your own, too."

"I'm a bastard. I cannot take the throne."

"Your father could easily change that," Castiel pointed out. "A simple document, a signature, the royal seal, and it would be done. I'm surprised he hasn't already."

"I asked him not to, so I would be free to marry whomever I choose."

"But you haven't married."

Ruby glared at him and placed a protective hand on her belly. "And?"

"And nothing."

Relaxing, Ruby nodded again. "Anyway, I have something for you."

"A good luck charm?"

"Something like that." She plunged her hands into the pockets of her robe and threw a fistful of objects on the bedspread. Curious, Castiel leaned forward and watched her sift through dried flower petals, bits of string, candle stubs, and charcoal before she plucked a delicate chain off the blanket and lifted it upward. There was a small pendant attached to the end. Made of scratched, aged wood, it was smooth on one side, and covered with a star surrounded by what looked like flames on the other.

He took it from her when she offered it. "I'm not sure how this will help."

"It's for protection," Ruby explained. "It will not stop you from being killed by a sword or poison or anything that isn't magic, or stop a witch more powerful than I from harming you, but it will help. A death spell will become something else. Lesser spells won't do anything to you at all."

Castiel involuntarily dropped the necklace back onto the bed. "A witch? You're a witch? Witches aren't _real._ "

She nodded. "Yes, they are. I'm one of them." As if to prove it, Ruby held her hand up. A small flame appeared in her palm. Castiel gaped at it, and Ruby closed her fingers over the fire, extinguishing it.

"Since when?"

"Since always. How much do you know about my mother?"

"Not much. She loved both Abaddon and Azazel. She had a gift for growing things. She died young," Castiel answered. Ruby's mother, Violet, had died from some sort of infection mere months after Abaddon had perished. Castiel never knew what the queen had died from, and neither had her children. Azazel had simply told them that something had happened to her head. He'd heard tales when he was younger that said Ruby's had died of a broken heart. But he knew better.

"My mother was the castle healer. She practiced healing arts, mostly, but she dabbled in other things. She taught me the Craft since I could walk. When she passed, I continued my training with a few other friends of hers. My daughter will be the same. Even though witches aren't outlawed here like they are in Araboth, we still have to keep it a secret, for the most part. Even here, most people think that witchcraft is nothing but card readings and fake love potions, and there is a lot of that. Most carnival fortune tellers and roadside physics are nothing but fakes. There are maybe five hundred real witches in the country. You have to be born with a gift for it, my mother said."

"Does your father know?"

Ruby nodded. "Of course. He has a protection amulet, too, and so does Benny."

"Meg?"

Ruby nodded again. "She knows some things, too. She's not as advanced as me, and she isn't as skilled. She doesn't really have a gift for it. But she has some power, and she'll use it to defend herself, wherever she is. The royal family isn't supposed to practice Craft, but I figured she should know some things." She picked up the necklace and held it back out to him. "Put it on. You don't know what's out there."

He obeyed her. "She never told me that she…that she knew about these things. That they were actually real. She always seemed to agree with me when I said such stories were nonsense."

"She wouldn't have told you. Witches are still outlawed in your country, and even if they're not here, it wouldn't do for it to be known that the heir to the throne practices, even a little. She doesn't know any Craft, but she knows a few useful things. Everyday stuff."

Castiel nodded and put the necklace on, tucking it into his tunic. The charm slid down his skin and dangled in the center of his chest to rest near his heart. He still didn't fully believe, but he figured that it couldn't hurt to take the amulet. "Thank you."

To his surprise, Ruby took his hand in hers and squeezed it. "You'll need every advantage you can get. Go."

He squeezed her hand back and left without another word. When he emerged into the courtyard, he saw Azazel waiting for him, standing next to a burly man that held the reigns of two horses in his hands.

"Castiel, you remember Benny?" Azazel asked. Castiel nodded, and reached out to shake the man's hand. They'd met each other a few times, and Castiel had always felt a little jealous of the man, because he knew that Meg had harbored a little crush on him for years. While she couldn't marry him, due to a difference in social status, it wasn't uncommon in Meg's kingdom for either gender to keep a paramour, and he'd always had a sneaking suspicion that Meg had her eye on Benny for the position.

At least until he had gotten her younger sister pregnant.

He could see why. Benny was an attractive man. Tall, with broad shoulders and firm muscles and strong, calloused hands, he sported close-cropped hair and a finely trimmed beard, he looked every bit like a young maiden's dream. In addition, he was a good fighter, had been given training with a sword and bow and could ride a horse better than almost any man Castiel had ever met.

"Brother," Benny greeted, tipping his head respectfully. Castiel nodded back.

"Benny will take you to the road that leads to Hangman's Wood," Azazel told him. Reaching out, he patted one of the coal black horses. "You'll take Boots and Button."

Castiel raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment on the horse's names. "Of course."

"You can't take the horses with you into the woods. There aren't any paths large enough for them," Azazel said. "Boots has a bag on him for you to carry. Some food, some skins of water. You'll need them. And I have this for you." Azazel held out his hands, and a servant ran up to present him with a wrapped bundle. Azazel nodded to the boy and took off the cloth to reveal a long, sharp sword. The hilt was plain, and the metal was a deep, dark black. "Meg had it made for you, for your wedding."

Castiel cautiously laid his hand on it and then flinched away. The sword seemed to hum at his touch, and had been warm under his fingers, almost like a living thing. "What is it? It doesn't feel like a normal sword."

"The hilt is made of dragon bone," Azazel said patiently. "The steel itself was made with magic."

"There are no dragon bones left," Castiel whispered, reaching forward to touch the sword again. It hummed slightly, and then quieted when he did not withdraw his touch. He could feel power in the blade, pulsing in the steel like a beating heart. "Dragons died out over two thousand years ago, if they ever existed at all."

"There are some bones left," Azazel said. "She found it. This blade cannot be broken. It will cut through anything spelled. Ropes, trees, cloth. The only thing it cannot cut is iron, which kills all magic."

Taking the offered belt and sheath, Castiel slid the sword inside of it and tightened the belt around his waist. He'd been trained with a sword since he could walk, and he felt better having the weight at his side. Swinging up on Boots, Castiel nodded to Benny when he mounted Button, and then looked down at Azazel.

"I will bring your daughter home," he promised.

"I'll be waiting for you."

.

"What do you know about Hangman's Wood?" Benny asked later, as they stopped at a small stream to give the horses water. It was nearly sunset, and Benny insisted on camping out for the night, not wanting Castiel to be wandering in the forest in the darkness. The abandoned village next to the woods was in rough shape. The grass was overgrown, moss and vines covered most of the small, stone huts, and weeds poked up through the broken paving stones. But enough of the stone buildings remained to give them shelter for the night. The village's name, if it had ever had one, had been purged from the kingdom's records for so long that no one remembered what it had originally been called. It didn't have a new name, either, as most people in Ennom preferred to pretend that it didn't exist.

"Just the stories I heard growing up, whenever I visited Meg here," Castiel said as they led the horses away and tied them up outside of their chosen building. Benny made a noise of acknowledgement and gestured for Castiel to get inside the home. The floor was covered in dust, and the few furnishings had been destroyed or rotted away long ago, leaving the floor bare.

He lit a fire in the abandoned firepit in the middle of the hut while Benny settled down across from him. "I'm assuming you heard that they used to execute criminals there, right? By hanging?"

Castiel nodded. "Well, that is where the name came from."

"Then you know that they say the woods are haunted. Did you ever hear that one of the men killed there was a witch?"

"No, I hadn't. But witchcraft was never punishable by death in Ennom."

"Witchcraft was never punishable by death, no, but there were arts that were forbidden. Mind control, for one. Using your magic to persuade someone to give up their possessions or wealth, or to exert control over their life, was considered grounds for expulsion not only from your coven, but from human life. Since there was no way for ordinary people to take care of the more powerful, the responsibility usually fell to other witches," Benny explained. "Necromancy is another thing that's outlawed. Whether it be on a human or a beast.

"There's a legend that says that, two hundred years ago, there was a witch who lived in this village. His whole coven was corrupt, and they ruled this village and the surrounding ones through fear, and grew rich and powerful preying on the other peasants here. They only got away with it for so long because the coven leader's son, a man named Fergus Crowley, was the lover of the princess."

"A member of the royal family was involved with this?" Castiel asked, shocked.

"She was a member of their coven as well. That's why it's discouraged for members of the royal family to practice, even all this time later. You've probably even seen a portrait of Lilith somewhere in the castle. She's hidden away, but she's there."

Castiel swallowed. Yes, he remembered the portrait of Princess Lilith. She'd been beautiful, with moon-pale skin, hair the color of spun gold, and a smile that was just a little sly. The old painting was hidden in the corner of one of the castle's western towers that was mainly used to store furniture.

"Eventually, Lilith couldn't hide what was happening any longer, and a neighboring coven found out about what was happening. They swept in and rounded up all the members of Crowley and Rowena's coven, and dragged them out to Hangman's Wood. The king authorized them to do it, but he had no knowledge of his daughter's role, and she was not condemned. She only found out afterward, when her father brought her out there to watch the bodies burn.

"They hung the entire coven at the edge of the woods, and of course they burned the bodies after, to make sure that they could not come back, and to give their souls peace. But Lilith knew her Craft well, and she prevented her lover from burning completely. His corpse was blackened by the time the fire went out, his hair all burned away and his bones showing through his charred flesh, but as long as he was not ash, Lilith could save him. She knew the forbidden art of necromancy, and after the ashes of the others were cleared away, she took her lover's body deep into the woods and raised him. She could put his soul back in his body, but she couldn't fix it, burned as it was. She never walked out of that woods. The king sent out search parties, and they were all found mutilated in the trees. Eventually, he gave up his search, and she was never found. After that, people started disappearing. They'd go hunting in the woods and vanish, or be walking along the road and never make it home. Rumors spread about the place, and eventually the village was abandoned. Men were too afraid to go in there and build, or to even take this road."

"But Meg was not," Castiel said softly.

"We didn't hunt in there. We simply took the shortcut past it. She sent Ruby and I ahead to make camp in the village for the night. Said that she needed rest in her delicate state." Benny shook his head. "That was the only thing that saved us."

Realization dawned on Castiel. "You think that witch is still in the woods."

Benny nodded. "Might be. Might not be. The witches did something, after people started going missing. Don't know what it was, and Ruby won't tell me about it. That's part of their history, not mine, and the covens around here are secretive. But something's in those trees, and it ain't human." Sighing, Benny stretched out on the floor and reached to pull his cap down over his eyes. "Get some sleep, Cas. I'll wake you up at first light."

"Shouldn't one of us keep watch?"

Benny pulled his hat back up. "No one comes here, and whatever's in the woods can't get out. Not this far out, anyway." Pulling the brim of his hat back over his eyes, Benny folded his arms over his chest, clearly ending the conversation.

Castiel tried to imitate him and sleep. The fire crackled merrily, but beyond that, there were no other sounds around him. There was always background noise in his life, castle guards doing nighttime checks, servants or siblings sneaking out at night for a liaison or to pinch food from the castle kitchens, cats meowing and dogs barking, insects humming and owls hooting. But here there was nothing, not even the cheerful chirping of crickets, to break the silence.

Uneasy, he stretched out and rolled onto his side, stuffing the fur-lined cloak that Benny had given him under his head as a pillow, and attempted to get comfortable. It worked for a few minutes, and he found himself starting to drift off to sleep when a short, sharp scream broke the silence.

Sitting up quickly, Castiel reached for his sword and leapt to his feet, eyes darting around the darkened hut. Benny merely pulled his cap up and frowned.

"Sit down," he told Castiel. "I know that voice. It's Ivan."

"Ivan?"

"He was hunting with us."

"If he's screaming, then he's alive out there! We should go get him!" Castiel argued.

Benny shook his head. "He's not alive, Castiel. Ruby and I were the only people to make it out, remember? We found everyone else's heads. That's his ghost screaming out there, not him. Try to ignore it and sleep." Benny scratched his neck. "Although, burning his head should've put his ghost to rest. Guess we need the rest of his body for that. Still, hard to scream without a head." Shrugging, Benny pulled his cap back down over his eyes.

Castiel tried to follow Benny's advice, curling up on his side with one ear pressed deep into the folds of the cloak and one hand over his other ear to block out the screaming, but it didn't work. The screams got louder and louder, new voices being added to the chorus outside. Thankfully, they stopped after about an hour, and he was able to settle down into a restless sleep.


	2. Things That Crawl and Things That Fly

He woke sometime before dawn, feeling more drained than he had the day before. Benny, too, looked as though he had not slept at all, despite the fact that he had settled down long before Castiel. The older man didn't say anything, but simply shrugged and began packing up his gear. Castiel followed suit and pulled his cloak around him, fastening it at his shoulder with a plain buckle made of bone.

"We'll walk from here," Benny rasped. "After, I'll wait for you here. If you find Meg, bring her to the hut."

"How long will you wait?"

"A week," Benny told him. "After that, I'll take the horses back to the castle."

Castiel shivered, but nodded, and there was no more conversation until they reached the edge of the trees. They were as eerily quiet as the abandoned village had been the night before; he could hear no birdsong coming from the trees, or small animals rustling through the bushes.

Benny walked down the road, staying well away from the tree line, and finally stopped at a section of the woods that sported two ancient-looking wooden posts. They were blackened, as though someone had been burned on them. The trees there sported long, jutting limbs, perfect for ropes.

"This is where they killed them?" Castiel asked.

"Yeah. But more than that, this is where we found the heads," Benny said quietly. "Two of them were on top of the posts. The rest were lined up on the ground between them. Whatever took Meg, it took her from this spot."

Castiel nodded and stepped forward. "I'll see you in a week."

Benny clapped him on the back. "Brother, I sure hope so."

Castiel didn't respond, and strode forward into the forest without looking back.

From the moment that he stepped under the trees, Castiel felt weak, his legs growing heavy as if there was some huge, unseen weight pressing down on his shoulders. The protection amulet that Ruby had given him burned against his chest, sending warmth outward from his heart until the weight lifted and he could move freely again.

Even so, the air around him was thick and heavy, settling wetly in his lungs and making each breath a chore. It was hotter under the trees, too, reminding Castiel of the middle of summer despite the fact that autumn was beginning to flow into winter for the rest of the land. Azazel had deliberately scheduled Castiel and Meg's wedding to be at the turning of the seasons, when the leaves were full of color, in order to give them a more beautiful backdrop for their wedding. He couldn't deny that the man had a sense of romance.

The path in front of him was so narrow that leaves brushed against his shoulders with every step. For a moment he debated calling out Meg's name, to see if she was nearby, but thought better of it. If she had been near the entrance to the woods, she surely would've gotten out by now, and if someone or something had taken her, they would hear him calling.

Moving carefully, Castiel looked for any signs of human life around him. Benny had told him briefly during their ride that Meg had been wearing trousers and a man's shirt during the hunt instead of a gown, so he looked for any scraps of fabric clinging to branches or footprints on the path. He found neither.

As he walked deeper into the woods, the path seemed to widen, doubling in size. When he turned to look behind him, he saw that not only was the rest of the path larger, but that there were no footprints in the dirt to mark that he had been there. Looking down at his boots, he saw that they were perfectly clean, free of not only the dirt in the forest, but of the dirt that he had accumulated during his journey to Hangman's Wood with Benny. Lifting one foot, he stared at the trail, and watched, fascinated, as the ground underneath him rose as if being inflated, eliminating his footprints.

Frowning, he tested the ground again, heavily stomping on the packed dirt and then lifting his foot. It plumped again.

Uneasy, he continued forward, reaching one hand down to curl it around his sword. The blade was quieter, too, hardly humming at his touch. The leaves on the trees wavered, but Castiel felt no breeze in the air. Stopping again, he turned around and saw that the path behind him was closed, replaced by a wall of tree branches and shrubbery that had silently crept in while his back was turned.

Remembering Ruby's words, he drew his sword. It shimmered in the faint light filtering through the trees, and hummed louder. Gripping it with both hands, he swung it at the tree branches blocking his way and smiled when the sword sliced through them as easily as a hot knife going through butter. They fell to the ground with a satisfying crash, the motion sending the leaves spiraling into the air before floating back down to rest in the dirt.

His excitement died when he saw that there was another layer of branches behind the ones he'd cut through.

Squatting down on his heels, Castiel picked up one of the leaves and rubbed them, wincing while he did. Unlike real leaves, they felt thick and rubbery, and almost like they were covered in some sort of slime. When he dropped it, he could still feel the residue clinging to his fingers, and wiped them on his tunic, shuddering when the feeling stayed.

Suddenly, a crow screamed, breaking the perfect silence of the forest. Springing to his feet, Castiel turned in a circle, brandishing his sword in front of him. He stopped when he saw a crow swoop down and land on the branch closest to him. The bird tilted its head at him and screamed again, gleaming black beak opening wide. The bird's feathers, too, gleamed unnaturally black, looking almost oily.

"Go away," he told it, irritated that he had allowed himself to be frightened by a bird. The crow, however, simply leaned closer to him and tilted its head the other way. He could've sworn that he saw a spark of recognition in its eyes before the bird spread its wings and flew into the canopy of leaves above him. Once the bird departed, the forest quieted again.

Abandoning the way he'd come, Castiel decided to venture deeper into the forest instead. As he did, he used his sword to mark his progress, carefully carving two parallel slashes into each trunk. Unlike his footprints, the slashes stayed in place, and when he looked behind him he could still see them on the trees before the path was swallowed up.

He walked for what felt like hours until he reached a fork in the path. He could not see what lay at the end of them, if there were other paths branching off or only more trees. Standing between them, he glanced back and forth, trying to decide, when the crow appeared again. Swooping down by his feet, it walked awkwardly toward the right fork, pecked the ground twice, and then hopped down the path. When he didn't follow, the crow repeated the process, this time cawing loudly at him.

"Right it is then," he muttered, marking the way with his sword. The crow hopped twice, and then took to the air, settling in the branches above him.

The path seemed to stretch on forever. Still, Castiel walked, looking for any sign of Meg. Even this deep in the forest, there were no signs of her. But the forest could've easily swallowed any signs like it swallowed her footprints. The longer he walked, the longer the shadows on the ground stretched, until he had to squint to see in the faint sunlight. Unwilling to stop for the night, he pressed onward. The sound of rustling branches accompanied him, signaling that the crow was near, and following his journey. Strangely comforted, he whistled to it once, to see if it would respond. It did not.

The sun set, plunging the forest around him into darkness, but his sword seemed to have its own internal glow. The dark metal gave off a strange, shining light that stretched about two feet in front of him. After a few moments, he noticed a strange green light coming from above him and cautiously sheathed his sword to stare at the canopy above him.

All of the leaves were glowing.

Turning in place, Castiel gazed up at the trees, mouth agape. Every single leaf was alight, giving off the illusion that the branches were covered in green fire. It gave light to the whole path, showing him every rock and dip beneath his feet. Had he been in any other place, he would have called it beautiful, but instead the light around him made him feel uneasy. During the day, the trees had simply looked like ordinary trees, brow and scarred from years of snows and rains and storms, from animals that pecked at the bark or sharpened their claws on the trunks. In the flowing green light the trees looked almost sinister. A group of interlocking branches formed the shape of a skull instead of a group of sticks. A malformed trunk looked almost like a woman screaming instead of a lumpy, ugly plant. The rocks under his feet, once so ordinary, look the shape of grinning heads.

Even the air changed. It had been wet and heavy ever since he had first set foot in the forest. It felt heavier now, and made him feel strangely sleepy and his limbs feel heavy, as though he had been drinking his brother's finest wine. It had smelt like a normal forest at first, but now the sickly-sweet smell of rotting meat invaded his nostrils and wrapped itself around him.

The crow flew down in front of him again and landed on the path. It fluttered its wings twice and opened its beak wide, but stayed silent. When it tilted its head, he imitated it.

"Are you an evil spirit leading me into a trap, or something trying to help me?" he asked it. The crow tilted its head the other way and closed its beak. "I guess the only way to find out is to keep going."

The crow cawed at him and flew upward. Castiel figured it was agreeing with him and pressed onward, absently reaching back for his skin of water. The liquid was fresh and clear, and while it was warm, it still chased away the taste of rot from his mouth. Moving carefully, he took another sip, and felt strength flow into his limbs. The protection amulet resting over his heart warmed his chest pleasantly, and he wondered if it was the magic working inside of it that gave off the heat.

Eventually, the path opened up into a large, unnatural looking clearing. The grass glowed just like the trees around him, but the moon shining down bleached it an eerie silver color. The clearing was perfectly round and there were at least six yards between him and the center, where a large, bare tree surrounded by white rocks stretched toward the dark sky.

He looked up and noticed that there were no stars, just the large, swollen moon hanging in the sky. Frowning, Castiel took a step back. The moon had been nothing but a sliver in the sky when he had entered the forest, nowhere near full. But here it was perfectly round. He turned to walk back down the path when the crow swooped down and flew around his head, forcing him to turn back toward the clearing. The bird landed, pecked the ground twice, and flew toward the dead tree. It landed again a few feet from the trunk.

"The tree's important?" Castiel guessed. The bird cawed at him in response and began hopping up and down, wings ruffled. Feeling foolish, he obeyed the bird and walked into the clearing, freezing in place when he neared the tree.

There were no rocks around the tree. Instead there was a ring of human skulls in a perfect circle two feet away from the trunk. Swallowing hard, he looked up at the long, bare branches and felt his heart drop when he caught sight of a delicate silver chain glinting in the moonlight.

Hanging from a branch was another protection amulet.

The one around his neck grew warmer in response, and he could hear his sword humming louder. A breeze came through the clearing, sending the amulet twirling in the night. His mouth went dry when he saw the large, elaborate _M_ carved into the back of the pendant.

Meg's protection amulet.

She'd been there, then, and she had lost her only protection against the evil forces in the forest.

The smell of rot returned, and he could not tell if it was coming from the tree or from the skulls. He reached up with trembling hands, intending to snatch the amulet from the branch it was hanging on, when a burning feeling shot through his flesh. Yelping, he recoiled and jumped backward. The air in front of the tree shimmered, glowing green just inside of the ring of skulls.

The crow hopped forward and pecked the ground in front of the skulls. When he did not move again, it leaped forward and landed on his sword. Cawing, it danced along the blade and pointed its beak toward the nearest skull on the ground. The bleached white bones shone in the moonlight, revealing cracked teeth.

Castiel looked between the crow and the skulls and frowned.

"Magic," he guessed. The crow screamed in response and swooped back down to peck the skull. Recalling Azazel's words about the sword being able to cut through anything, he gripped it with both hands and raised the blade high above his head. The crow danced away as he brought the blade down on the skull, shattering the circle. The air shimmered once, then stilled.

Kicking the broken remains of the skull aside, Castiel carefully reached up again, letting out a sigh of relief when no harm came to his flesh. He wrapped his fingers around the protection amulet and gently plucked it from the branch. The wood was warm.

He turned to face the crow. "Thank you."

The bird only titled its head again and watched him. Turning away from it, Castiel traced his fingers over the curly letter. The amulet was proof that Meg was here in the forest, and that she had passed this way. He didn't know why should would have taken it off, however. Ruby had been secretive about her practice for the entire time he'd known her, but she'd informed him of the amulet's protective properties when she'd given it to him. Benny seemed to know that she was a witch, too. Ruby had even told him that she'd taught Meg a few tricks, so clearly she knew more about magic than she had ever told him.

But if that was true, why would Meg abandon her amulet? If she'd wanted to leave a trail, she could've easily carved a symbol into the trees, or tied scraps of fabric around branches. The only explanation was that something or someone had removed the amulet by force and hung it there.

Castiel shivered at the thought and opened his palm to look down at the star and flames, and wished that he knew some sort of magic. The object belonged to Meg, and surely Ruby or some other witch would be able to track her with it. But he could only stare at it and pray that she was still alive.

"Which way?" he asked the crow. "Shall I go back and try the other fork, or keep going forward? What do you think?"

The crow tilted its head, spread its wings, and flew for his face.

Momentarily forgetting his sword, Castiel threw his hand up to protect his eyes and screamed in pain when the crow pecked at the fist clutching Meg's amulet. His fingers opened involuntarily. He felt the chain slipping through his fingers, tried to grasp it again, and cursed when his hand closed around empty air. But the crow stopped its assault. He opened his eyes and lowered his hand just in time to see it pluck the necklace from the ground and swoop to the other side of the clearing.

"Hey! Give that back!" he yelled. Disregarding the wounds on his hand and the blood pouring from them, he sprinted across the clearing. But the bird ignored him. Instead, it picked the chain of the necklace up in its beak, tossed it in the air, and stuck its head under it so the silver landed across its back.

He stopped halfway to the crow and watched as it stiffened. Its wings opened halfway, its beak stretched wide, and its dark eyes bugged in its head, as if they were trying to pop out of its skull. The bird's dark feathers, turned dusty by the moonlight, began to grow longer as the air around it began to waver. The dirt under it shifted, as if a strong wind was blowing through the clearing, and it rose up and covered the bird completely. A strange smell came to his nose, damp like rain and sharp like evergreen.

Magic.

Fascinated, he lowered his sword so the point rested in the dirt. The dome of dust grew larger and larger, stretching to the length of a human, and a long, pained scream tore through the air.

A moment later, the dust settled, and the crow was gone. In its place was a human woman crouching in the dirt, dressed in a long, black gown made of feathers. Her hair, almost as dark as the dress, fell forward over her face and into the dirt. The gown was sleeveless, exposing her pale arms, and Castiel could see that she was trembling.

He swallowed hard and took a cautious step toward her. "Miss?"

The woman ignored him and rolled onto her back. He watched as she raised her hands in front of her face and flexed her fingers and rolled her wrists. Next, she sat up and ran her fingers down her body, passing them over her breasts and stomach and down to feel the shape of each leg under the feathered skirt of the gown. Her toes poked out from the hem, and she wiggled them before touching the tip of a finger to each one, as if counting to make sure they were all there. Still, her face stayed hidden by her curtain of dark, messy hair.

He took another step forward. "Miss?"

Finally, the woman turned to look at him. There were large, dark circles under her eyes, but they shone with happiness when they saw him. "Cas."

His heart dropped into his stomach. His fingers opened, sending the sword down into the dirt. He forgot about the circumstances, forgot about the dangerous forest and the tree ringed by humans skulls, forgot about everything else but the woman sitting on the other side of the clearing.

He ran toward Meg and fell onto his knees so he could take her in his arms. She clung to him, wrapping her arms around his back and holding him tightly against her. He buried his face in her neck and stroked her long, dark hair, dislodging the twigs and leaves that were caught in the tresses.

Meg held him a moment longer and pulled away. Before she could say anything, he covered her lips with his in a rough kiss. She raised her hands and fanned her fingers across his cheeks, keeping him pressed against her as she moved her lips against his.

When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against hers, eyes closed. "I knew you were alive."

He heard Meg swallow hard. "Am I the only one?"

He didn't want to open his eyes. It would be easier to tell her the news if he couldn't see the pain on her face when she found out that so many were dead. But he opened his eyes and pulled away from her, anyway, taking her hands in his. "Out of those who were on the road."

She swallowed again. "You're sure?"

He nodded. Part of him wanted to spare her the details, but he'd known Meg all his life, and knew that she was no stranger to blood and gruesome deaths. She was one of her father's top 'interrogators' after all, and had apprenticed in the dungeons under her uncle, Alistair. "They found the heads for the first group, the ones who were with you for your bridal hunt. They didn't find anything else. Then your father sent another party after them, and none of them came back. Just their horses and an arm."

"Ruby?" she asked in a small voice. "The baby?"

"She's fine. I saw her at the castle."

This time, Meg's eyes were the ones who squeezed shut. Her voice trembled. "Benny?"

"He's alive," Castiel told her, trying to ignore the twinge of jealousy in his stomach when Meg smiled and sagged with relief. She opened her eyes again and pulled away from him to stand.

"You shouldn't be here," she told him. "You really shouldn't."

"I came here to find you!"

She shook her head. "I know. But this place…you shouldn't be here. No human should be here."

"Well, now we'll leave. I marked the path back."

She rolled her eyes at him. "That won't help. I've been here for ages, trying to find a way out. Every time I flew near to where I thought the entrance to the woods was, the path would change, or the trees would be too thick to get through. I couldn't even fly upward. If I tried, even in clearings like this, I couldn't make it. The sky looks pretty close, but no matter how high up I went, the branches followed. I couldn't get out."

"Why were you a crow?" he asked.

Meg froze, eyes darting around the clearing, and reached down to grab his hand. "We can't stay here. Get your sword and I'll tell you on the way. Do you have food?"

Stunned, he blinked at her. "Yes, I have food. But what are you talking about? I don't see anything wrong."

"You haven't been here as long as I have," she snapped. Dropping his hand, she raced to where his sword was, scooped it up, and darted around to the other side of the clearing. Seeing no choice but to follow, Castiel raced after her, taking Meg's hand when she offered it.

"We should go the other way," he protested. "Meg, we have to stop to mark the path, or we'll get lost. Meg!"

She tugged him forward, insistent. "Can't. The way's gone now."

"It's not gone! How can it be gone?"

"It just is. Besides, it isn't safe. Didn't you hear them?"

"Hear what?" he asked as a long, terrified scream tore through the night. He jerked to a halt, forcing Meg to stop with him. She growled and tugged at his hand, trying to pull him down the path.

"We have to go!" she insisted. "I know a safe place."

Another scream tore through the air, followed by the sound of children giggling. "What is that?"

Meg tugged at his hand. "Later. We have to go. I know a place."

This time, he followed her, ignoring the other screams that lit the air. He tried to memorize the path, but Meg moved too fast for him to find any landmarks. She tugged him left, shooting them down a path so narrow that it was impossible for them to walk side by side. The trees grazed his sides, leaving a sticky, oily residue on his clothing. The smell of rot increased. She took another left, and then another, before she stopped in front of a tangle of brambles.

"Do you have a knife?" she asked him.

"The sword is magic. I can cut through spells."

"I saw that at the Skulltree," she said tartly. "But we need these spells to stay where they are. Do you have a knife?"

He reached into his boot sheath and handed her his small knife. Meg handed him back his sword and probed the wall of brambles for a moment, stopping when her palm hit something only she could see. He watched as she pricked her finger with the knife, winced, and squeezed it so the blood would flow better.

"What?"

She shushed him and pressed her finger to the spot before using her blood to draw a circle. Once it was complete, she pricked her finger again and drew a star inside of it. Castiel tried to move forward, but Meg pushed him back and slammed her palm down on the mark.

The brambles shook, and then vanished, revealing a small clearing. Meg ignored his stunned look and dragged him inside. Once they were safely through, she repeated the process on the inside and the wall appeared again, sealing them in.

It was pitch dark, and quiet, the screams from outside unable to penetrate their hideaway. He groped in the dark for a moment and pulled out his sword to light the space. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere safe," Meg answered. She moved to the left, away from the light the sword gave off. He heard her whisper something, and saw a small tongue of fire appear. In another moment there were torches lit along the walls of the structure, bright enough so he could see the whole thing.

She'd taken them to what looked like a small, round hut with a low ceiling. The walls were made of dead branches, packed so tightly that no light could filter through. It was small, maybe nine feet across, and perfectly round. The ceiling looked as though it was made up of layers and layers of dead leaves packed together to create a solid, comforting blanket over their heads.

"It moves, so you never know where you're going to find it," Meg explained, sitting at a small, round table in the center of the room. There were logs for chairs, and Castiel perched himself on the one opposite her. "Oh, it feels good to have hands again."

"Tell me what's going on. What's with the screaming in the woods? Benny and I heard it yesterday when we were camping at the village."

Her eyes widened. "Benny's _here?"_

He shook his head. "I came alone. He's waiting for us, back at the village. He said he'd give us a week."

"He should be home with his kid."

"Ruby's not due for a long while yet."

Meg stared at him. "What are you talking about? I've been here for _months."_

"You've only been gone a few weeks," he told her. "Did you really think it would take me months to come looking for you?"

Meg swallowed hard. "I don't know. Maybe time passes differently in here. It felt like months." She looked at him. "You probably came alone and left everyone else in your family. Figuring in shorter travel time, but then the time to get here and find me…"

"Our wedding would have been tomorrow," he said gently. "When the sun comes up."

"It doesn't always," she said absently. "Sometimes the sun will shine for days, and sometimes it won't. We only had the moon for a month, once. Or what felt like a month. But the trees glow, so there's light."

"I did notice that." Growing serious, he reached out and took her hand again. "Tell me what happened."

"We were riding home. The hunt had run late, but we'd caught this beautiful stag. The meat was going to be used in our wedding feast, you know. We would eat the heart together. It symbolizes love." Meg rolled her eyes. "Father is a bit of a romantic. Because he did that with my mother, he wanted it for us. We decided to take a shortcut home, so the meat would not spoil beyond saving, and so my father wouldn't worry. We'd all heard the stories about the woods growing up, of course, and I'd seen Lilith's picture in the attic. But we weren't afraid. They were just stories to us, a way to explain why the royal daughter went missing, and why it's unacceptable for members of the royal family to practice witchcraft."

"What you did outside looked like witchcraft," he commented.

"It wasn't put there by me. I just know how to key it. Anyway, we were riding, and I noticed that Ruby was looking more exhausted than any of us, so I told her and Benny to go ahead and set up camp at the village. I watched them go, and then this…shadow came out of the woods. It was shaped like a dog, but my arrow passed right through it when I tried to shoot it. Its eyes glowed red, and then more of them came out of the woods. It spooked the horses, and we tried to run, but there were too many of them. The horses were screaming, and the dogs, or shadows, or whatever they were attacked them," Meg explained. "Ivan was thrown from his horse, and two of the beasts leapt at him and dragged him into the woods. Tammy was next. She fell and they tore at her throat. We couldn't touch them, but they could clearly touch us. She died screaming as they ate her. Her leg came right off, like they were tearing apart a chicken.

"Samhain tried to save me. He leapt off his horse when the creatures attacked and told me to run. He kept trying to hack at them, and his sword actually went through them. But he was a witch, and I'm sure his blade was enchanted. It didn't matter in the end, anyway. When I tried to run, more of them darted out of the trees and went for my horse. It went down under me. When I landed, I saw the creatures kill Samhain. One had him by the back of his neck. Before I could get up one of them had its teeth in my trouser leg. Another one grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me into the trees."

"What happened then?" Castiel pressed.

Meg shrugged. "My head hit a rock and I passed out. When I woke up, I was lying on a cold, stone floor. My clothes were torn and filthy, covered in blood and dirt and forest debris. My weapons were gone. My knives, my arrows, the bow that my father gave me for my birthday…all gone. There were bars on the small windows, and nothing in the room but a pallet of straw in the corner. There was one door that led out of the room, but I could not budge it, no matter how hard I tried."

"Someone did take you prisoner."

"No. It wasn't a person." Meg looked down at their joined hands. "You've heard of Fergus Crowley?"

"Benny told me, yes."

"He lives," Meg said. "He lives, and he is here, and he will find us and kill us."

"He died hundreds of years ago, Meg. There's no way he's still alive," Castiel argued.

Meg huffed. "I know what I saw. He's still alive, Cas. He's been living here for all those years, preying on people travelling. Keeping them hostage in his castle and bathing in their blood to stay healed."

"You actually saw him?"

Meg nodded. "I don't know how long I was in that room. He came into my cell and had these two things drag me out. They were hanged men, I think, and dead a long time. They smelled like it, and their necks were broken, but they were really strong. They dragged me into this huge room and chained me to this metal thing shaped like a circle. They had chains for my wrists and ankles, and one that went around my middle, and another for my throat so I could barely breathe, and so I could not move my head. I thought I was going to die. Crowley laughed at me, and grabbed my face, and I really saw him. He was rotted. I could see bones coming through his face, and his flesh flaked off when he moved. It was all burned and blistered, most of it was black, but some of him was still oozing pus. Some of him smelt like he was still cooking.

"His tongue was mostly gone, and blackened, but there was one pink patch. He stuck it out and wiggled it at me, and then he winked. He only had one eye left, the other one was just a blackened hole, but he still winked. Then he leaned forward and licked the blood from this cut on my cheek. I struggled, but the chains were too tight. Whatever he found, he didn't like, so he lowered his head and licked my blood from a cut on my arm instead. He stood there for a minute while I cursed at him and tried to get free, and then told the men that my blood wouldn't work.

"Then he looked at me, and he smiled and told me that he knew what I was. He said that someone would come from me, and their blood would work, so he would keep me there. Then he told the men to take me down and put me back in my cage. So I stayed there for what felt like months. I slept a lot. The sun would shine for several days, and then the moon would come out, and then it would be daytime again for a week. I think. It's impossible to chart time in here. I searched every inch of that little room for a way out. I wrecked my fingernails trying to find lose stones, I threw myself at the door every time those things came to shove a tray of food into the room, and I tried to get through that damn window. There was nothing I could do. Every few nights, the men would drag me back to that room and Crowley would cut me with a knife and massage my blood into his skin. Over time, I noticed that it looked more human, like it was healing him. He must've had other people captive in there, too, because the last time he dragged me out, he was almost healed. At least for a while."

"How did you get out?" Castiel asked.

Meg smiled slightly. "He did have other people captive in there. There was this girl named Jo. She was stuck there, same as I was. I was so out of it when I saw her that I thought she was an angel and I was dying. The sun was out, like it always was, and her hair was the same color. I hadn't been fed for several days, and I was weak from losing so much blood, and when I saw her, she blended in with the light around me. She was so pale, too, that I knew she'd been locked up in a windowless cell. She had keys that she'd gotten from somewhere. Later, she told me that they thought she was dying, so they'd just left her on the floor to die. But she got herself up, found the keys, and she'd seen me when she was running. She said that she couldn't just leave me there. She got me up, she made me walk out of there. But Crowley saw us. Since he was healed, he came after us. We tried to run, but we were both clumsy, both slow and weak. She'd seen the corpse chute, where Crowley and his minions threw out the dead he'd drained, so she'd thought we could escape through there. There wasn't enough time to reach it. So we did something else. Do you remember that summer when Tom and I were thirteen and you stayed with us?"

Castiel laughed. "You tortured me relentlessly."

Meg's mouth twitched. "Only for a little while."

"You two hung me upside down from a tree and pelted me with tomatoes. I don't see how it's relevant."

"Yeah, but do you remember some of the other things we did? Especially the one involving the barn?"

Yes, Castiel remembered the time with the barn. Tom and Meg had spent hours trying to convince him that sneaking up onto the roof and jumping off it into the large pile of hay at the side of the building was a good idea. Eventually, they'd done it, and the three of them had spent the afternoon scattering the hay that the stablehands had carefully gathered. Azazel had been livid, and angrier than Castiel had ever seen him.

Up until that point, at least. In the following years, Castiel had learned that Azazel's harsh words and anger had never dampened his offspring's desire for trouble.

"You jumped out a window?" Castiel guessed. Meg nodded.

"Tried to, anyway. I saw the hay, and I knew. I made Jo jump first, just in case, and then I followed her. But Crowley sent some sort of blast of magic at me, and it hit me. I went from falling out a window to flying away from it. My protection amulet that Ruby had given me fell off and landed on Jo's head. She thought to grab it when she sprinted for the woods. I followed her. There wasn't any time to think about what form I was in, or what happened. Jo explained it to me later. Crowley tried to kill me, but the protection amulet turned it into something else. When I found her in the woods, she put it over my head, and I transformed back. And I was wearing this." Meg freed one of her hands and spread the feathered skirt of her gown. "I can't get it off. When I take off the amulet, I change back."

"What happened to this Jo?" Castiel asked.

"We found places like this, places that were safe. You can't hear any screams here, and none of those shadow things can get in. They're all over the forest; searching for people who're lost so they can drag them back to Crowley," she told him. "Jo and I would venture out for food, or for water, or to look for a way out. These places, the paths, everything in the forest moves. Even Crowley's castle. So we'd go out together, to protect each other. We went out one day, and the shadow dogs got Jo. Crowley was with them, and he'd started to rot again, since his last two victims were gone. The dogs almost had me, and I couldn't save her. Crowley reached out and got his hand around my amulet, and wrenched it off me before the dogs got near. I changed, and I fled. I heard Jo's death scream from the trees. I've been flying around as a crow ever since, still trying to find the way out. If I'd gotten home, Ruby could've changed me back permanently."

"We kissed," Castiel pointed out. "Isn't true love's kiss supposed to break a spell?"

Meg scoffed. "This isn't a fairytale. This is real life. In real life, only another witch can break a spell."

"Did you ever find out what kind of blood Crowley needed?"

Meg nodded. "Jo did. She'd been scurrying around the castle for days, trying to find a window or the corpse hole. Crowley had her in a basement. She found his workroom, and his notes. He's trapped here, by whatever spell those ancient witches cast. The book said he needed pure blood in order to walk free again, pure blood of noble birth. Apparently, the ancient witches thought that peasants were too dirty on principle. Any other blood can heal him, for a time. I guess he figured that more nobles would join the search for me, and one of them would fit his criteria."

"Pure blood? What's it mean by pure blood?" Castiel asked, confused.

"Innocence," Meg answered. "Purity."

"I still don't understand."

"Virgin blood," Meg clarified. "He needed the blood of a virgin of noble birth."

"Then why wouldn't your blood work? You aren't married."

"Castiel, I'm not a virgin," Meg said gently. "I haven't been for two years now."

He drew away. "I knew it. There was something between you and Benny."

Meg nodded. "Yes. Ruby and I shared him. We did everything together from girlhood. Why would that be any different? He's a good friend, and a good man, and we knew that it could not happen with you. Besides, I agreed to marry you, didn't I?"

"For political reasons."

"No. Because I wanted you," Meg said firmly. "If I didn't want to marry you, I would've told my father no. I had that sword made for you. We were going to eat a stag's heart at our wedding feast to symbolize our everlasting love. I asked my father to include a _blood vow_ in the ceremony."

Stunned, Castiel blinked rapidly. Blood vows were an old tradition, and increasingly rare in Meg's country. "You did?"

"Yeah, Clarence, I did."

Meg's use of her childhood nickname for her, which had been invented because she'd had trouble pronouncing his real name, warmed his heart. He took her hands again and smiled. "Then we get out of here."

"I don't know if we can. This place is like a maze, Castiel, and time works so differently here. The night isn't safe, and neither are the shadows, or the food."

"The food?"

Meg nodded. "That's why I wanted to be sure you brought some with you. The food here causes horrible hallucinations. Except for the bugs. That was the one thing I liked about being a crow. I could eat without hallucinations. Every time Jo and I managed to find food, we'd have to lock ourselves in one of these places for the night, because the thing's we'd see."

"Wait, you ate bugs?" Castiel interrupted. Meg glared at him.

"Yes, I ate bugs. But if you have something else in that bag, I'd really like to eat it. I'm sick of having worms for dinner."

"It just so happens that I have some jerky and some apples," he told her. Reaching into his pack, he pulled out an apple and polished it on his shirt before handing it to her. Meg gripped the fruit gently, lovingly stroking the red skin with her fingers before she sank her teeth into it with a loud moan. He looked away as the juice ran down her chin and she closed her eyes in bliss.

"This is the best thing I have ever eaten my life," she breathed as she took another bite. "If we get home, I'll never complain about food again."

"I guess we're even now."

"For what?"

"For that time you made me eat bugs when they told us that we were engaged."

Meg laughed. "I was ten years old. Besides, it was funny."

"You and your brother and sister held me down and made me eat several pillbugs. It was not funny at the time."

"It was to me. Bugs are actually and excellent source of protein, you know. We were doing you a favor. You were such a skinny thing, then. You got overpowered by two ten year old kids and their nine year old sister."

"There were more of you than there were of me. Besides, I wasn't expecting you to punch me in the face and make me eat bugs when our fathers told us that they expected us to marry."

Meg took another bite of the apple. "Yeah, it's a wonder they kept the contract after that. Do you remember that one year where I visited you and your older brother caught us kissing in the orchard?"

"Of course I do," Castiel said softly. When he had turned eighteen and was considered a man grown on his own merits, he'd spent hours alone in the orchard, practicing the speech he'd wanted to make to Azazel, intending on asking the man to let he and Meg marry before she turned eighteen. It was done all the time in his kingdom. After a few hours, Meg had found him in the middle of his speech.

She'd given him his first kiss that night, arms wrapped around his neck in a stranglehold. He'd immediately pushed her against a tree and kissed her back. He still remembered the sound that the apples made when they hit the ground, the force of Meg's back hitting the tree being enough to dislodge them.

Gabriel had found them after a few minutes, forcibly pried them apart, and sent Meg up to the castle while he gave Castiel a talking to.

Meg smiled and held the apple out to him. She'd eaten half of it, leaving the other half for him. "Eat."

He pushed it back toward her. "I have more."

"We have to ration. You don't want to wind up eating the food here." She pushed it back toward him. "Eat. Then we'll get some sleep. You won't hear anything screaming in here tonight."

Castiel finished his half of the apple and washed it down with a swig from his water skin. While he did that, he noticed Meg rooting through a tiny cupboard just beyond the flames. When she returned, she had two bedrolls bundled under her arms.

"Did Jo build this place?" he asked her.

Meg shook her head. "She'd had some training from the witches in her village, and she could recognize when something was spelled or hidden. Someone else built this place, and by the looks of it, it was someone with big magic."

"Who do you think it was?"

"I think maybe my dear great auntie realized that she'd gotten in over her head and tried to flee," Meg guessed. "If Crowley could live all these years, why not Lilith? But I never saw her in the castle, and I never saw any trace of any women aside from Jo and I. But we'll never really know. Best not to think about it."

Castiel nodded in agreement and took one of the bedrolls from Meg. "Should one of us keep watch?"

Meg shook her head. "I told you, nothing can get in here. We should both try to get some sleep."

He laid out his bedroll and offered Meg his cloak. "Here. You'll need it."

Meg only glared at him before she set up her bedroll next to his and stretched out. "It'll cover both of us."

"Meg, that's improper."

"We're in the middle of the woods, Castiel. No one will ever know."

"It still isn't right! We shouldn't be sleeping so close together until we're married!"

Meg raised an eyebrow at him. "If it makes you feel better, you can put your sword between us like the knights used to do in the fairytales our minder read us when we were kids. That way you can make sure that your big, scary fiancée, doesn't get handsy."

He felt his face burn with embarrassment. "Meg, it isn't funny."

"It really is. We're engaged, Clarence. As in, we were supposed to be getting married tomorrow evening. Father had it all planned out." Her voice changed to a high-pitched, breathy tone. "A long, red carpet across the gardens for me to walk down, the big pretty dress, timing it just so the sun would be setting behind us when we kiss to seal the marriage, with the autumn leaves swirling down around us in blazes of color."

"Are you mocking our wedding?"

"I'm mocking how weirdly romantic my father is. There's a difference. Now, come on, I'm tired. The transformation always takes it out of me."

He slid onto the bedroll cautiously, but didn't place the sword between them like she'd half-jokingly suggested. He trusted Meg, and besides, he wasn't planning on doing anything untoward. He covered them both with the cloak, making sure to give Meg more of it since she was dressed lighter than he was, and tried to sleep.


	3. The Shadows Come to Dance

Castiel had a hard time finding sleep. He was used to the noise of the castle in Araboth, used to servants or guards roaming the halls at night and small creatures moving through the darkness. The silence was unnerving, and the excitement of finding Meg still ran through his body. He wanted to reach out and touch her again, if only to prove that she was really there and it wasn't some dream.

He turned his back to her and scooted as far away as he could, until he was practically sleeping on the hard, dirt floor of their space. He would've liked nothing better than to take her in his arms and press their bodies together, to keep her safe throughout the night, but it would be improper of him, since they were not yet married, so he kept his distance to ease the temptation.

Hearing Meg sigh loudly, he turned around and saw her glaring at him. His movements had pulled most of the cloak off of Meg's body, leaving her shivering. "Sorry."

"Jo and I would huddle for warmth in these things, when we found one that didn't have blankets. It's not improper. I'm sure you and your siblings piled on each other like kittens, too, when you slept in the same bed."

"Siblings are different. So are two women. Many women share beds with their friends to keep warm, and to keep each other company," he said patiently.

"And a lot of women share a bed for the same reason that a man and woman share a bed," she pointed out. "You're acting like you've never spent the night in bed with a woman you aren't related to."

"I haven't," he snapped. Meg's eyes widened and she sat up on the bedroll.

"Surely you have. Even if you haven't spent _all_ night with them."

He stiffened. "I was promised to you."

"There are brothels in your country. I know there are. Even if you didn't visit one of them, you're a good looking guy. You must've had a sweetheart, some kitchenmaid or another noblewoman."

He shook his head. "I did not want to dishonor you."

"Do you think I dishonored you, when I slept with Benny?"

He shook his head again. "It is different, in your country. Women have more freedom in Ennom than they do in Araboth. But I wanted you to be the only woman I ever touched."

"Wait, so you're saying that you _never?"_

Castiel felt his face redden, and was thankful that the torches did not provide enough light for Meg to see him blush. "Never."

"Take off your pants."

"What?"

Meg scooted closer. "You heard me. Take off your pants."

"Meg, what are you talking about? We have to wait until we get out of here and we've married!"

"Didn't you hear me? Crowley's spell requires the blood of a virgin noble," she reminded him. "Well, guess what wandered into his forest, completely unaware of that?"

"Oh."

She snorted. "Yeah. So, off with the pants, unless you want Crowley to drain you dry and kill everyone we know."

Heart beating fast in his chest, Castiel swallowed hard. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and looked around the small space. "This isn't how it's supposed to go."

Meg's expression softened. Reaching out, she lightly stroked his cheek. "I know."

"There's supposed to be a nice, soft bed, with flower petals on it, and singers outside the door, with musicians playing their harps and lutes."

"I know," she repeated.

"What if I get you with child?"

Meg shrugged. "We'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Besides, we're engaged, remember? Unless you plan on calling it off when we get out of here."

"I wasn't planning on doing that. I still want to marry you."

"Well, there you go. We'll still be married. Besides, my father was expecting it to happen."

"What?"

Meg laughed. "He thought I would run off and get myself pregnant so I could fast-forward to our wedding before I came of age. My mother was pregnant when they married, you know."

"I didn't."

"Yeah. She wasn't showing yet. It's one of those secrets that everyone knows, but never really talks about. A lot of brides are knocked up or already have children when they get hitched. It's mostly peasant women, since they have more freedom to run around. No escorts going with them on their outings." Meg smiled. "Come here. Lay down."

He obeyed her. Meg scooted over until they were lying nose to nose and gently traced his lips with her thumb before she kissed him. It was gentle at first, innocent, the two of them moving their lips against each other like they had when they were children and had exchanged chaste kisses in the garden. Her lips were warm on his, and when he slipped a hand around her waist to stroke her back, he found that her flesh was warm as well. The small feathers on her gown ruffled as he ran his hand over the fabric, making them stand on end and giving her the appearance of an angry bird.

She changed their kisses from sweet and easy, becoming more aggressive as she pressed her lips harder against his and reached up to tangle her fingers in his hair. Her fingers worked at the leather thong keeping it tied back until she freed his tresses and combed her fingers through them. He groaned against her mouth and pressed closer to her.

"Pull my hair," she breathed. "Just a little bit. Then kiss my neck and bite, a little."

"Won't that hurt?"

She smirked at him. "That's the point."

He obeyed her, and was rewarded by another breathy moan when he nipped his way from her jaw to where her neck and shoulder joined. The feathered shoulders of her gown prevented him from moving further, so he retraced his path and sealed his lips over hers again.

"I want to see all of you," he murmured.

"When we get out of here," she promised. "You can rip my wedding dress off me if you want. Besides, the torchlight, the fact that we're all alone in the middle of the woods, that's romantic, isn't it?"

"If you forget the two hundred year old witch who wants to kill us, and the glowing trees, and the screaming."

"Then forget them," she suggested. "Focus on me." She surged forward to kiss him again, cutting off anything else that he could say. He kissed her back, settling his hands on her hips when she rolled them over so he was on his back under her. Meg kissed her way down his neck and tugged at his tunic until it was bunched up around his chest and she could nibble at his stomach. She licked his hipbones, making him shudder when she gripped one with her teeth and bit hard.

He tried to touch her back, running his hands along her neck and the bit of her back that her dress exposed, but Meg slithered up his body and grabbed his hands, forcing them above his head and holding them there.

"Later," she promised as she lowered her head to his neck again.

Breaking her grip, he grabbed her around the waist and flipped them over. Meg laughed as her hair fanned out behind her on the bedroll. He smiled down at her. "Not later. Now."

Her laugh changed into a moan as he bunched the skirt of her gown around her waist and slid his hands down her legs to stroke her inner thighs. She bucked against his hands when he reached between them and gently stroked her.

"I thought you'd never been with a woman," she teased.

He smiled. "I grew up with older brothers that liked to give well-intentioned advice. Now shush."

For once she listened to him, closing her eyes and throwing her head back when he slipped his fingers inside of her. She was wet and warm and willing, hips moving to grind herself against his fingers when he moved too slow for her liking. He watched her face while he moved his fingers in and out of her, watched her eyes shut tight and her mouth open in a perfect _o_ when he hit a sweet spot. The torchlight played over her face, highlighting her cheekbones and making her hair appear darker than it was. Using his other hand to brush her hair out of her face, he ran his thumb along her cheek and down to the corner of her mouth.

He kept moving until Meg stiffened and let out a long, breathy moan of contentment before she relaxed again. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. In the firelight, they looked almost black. "Come here."

He crawled up her body and pulled her into another kiss, slotting his hips between her spread thighs, and rutted himself against her. His cock stiffened in his trousers, pushing against the lose material, and he felt Meg's hips jump under his in response. Her hands wandered over his neck and back as they kissed before moving lower to tug at his pants, pushing them and his leggings down over the curve of his ass.

Panting, he broke their kiss long enough to help her wriggle the garments down to his knees before she pulled him back down on top of her, reaching down to help guide him. He kept his lips sealed over hers as he rolled his hips forward, groaning against her mouth when he felt her warm, wet heat envelop him.

He broke their kiss. "Are you alright?"

Meg refused to answer. Instead, she wrapped her legs around his waist and rolled them again so she was on top of him. The feathered skirt of her gown spread out around their legs, hiding their joined bodies from his view. He tried to roll them over again, but Meg simply raised her hips and sunk back down on his cock, arms braced on his chest and head thrown back so her long, dark hair rippled around her face. He gave up on getting her under him and sat up instead, pulling her into a kiss and wrapping his arms around her back. Meg broke the kiss with a moan of pleasure and Castiel lowered his head to her neck, sinking his teeth into the fragile skin there as he spilled himself inside of her.

Panting, Meg gave him a light push. He landed against the bedroll with a slight thump and didn't move as Meg rolled off of him and settled on her side, chest heaving. After a few moments, she smiled and poked him in the chest.

"Well," she said, "that's done."

"I don't know how you came out like this when your father is such a romantic," Castiel breathed.

"I really don't think it's appropriate to talk about my father right now."

"No, you're probably right." Castiel sighed and reached to right his clothing, rolling his leggings and trousers back up to secure them. Meg made a small noise of contentment next to him and scooted closer. Throwing one arm around his waist, she settled her head on his shoulder and rubbed her cheek against it. Their hair mingled together.

Reaching out, he brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "I love you."

"You're not so bad yourself," she said. "But now you're safe."

"From my blood being used in a spell to free a two hundred year old witch from this place so he can terrorize the world, at least."

She wrinkled her nose. "Well, we can't get married if you're dead, now can we? And if we don't ever find a way out of here, at least we got to have sex."

"I'm sorry it was so quick."

Meg snorted. "Well, just wait until we get back home. Practice makes perfect. On our wedding night I'm gonna ride you like a pony. And we'll have real ropes and chains to play with."

Uncomfortable, Castiel changed the subject. "We'll think about that another time. What was it like, being able to fly?"

"That part was pretty cool," Meg admitted, moving away from him to prop herself up on her elbow. "It really was a fly-or-die situation, though. Even if I'd hit the hay like Jo did, that body's so small that I probably would've been splattered everywhere. Not having hands is weird, too. But flying? It's pretty amazing. I wish I could've done it somewhere else. I can't imagine what being able to soar over an open field or farmland would be like."

"You knew what was going on the whole time?"

"Yeah, I was smarter than the average crow."

"Why didn't you try to tell me?"

She snorted. "What was I supposed to do? Use my beak to write a note in the dirt? You saw what happened. It erases footprints. Hell, with Skulltree, I tried to dig under the skulls to move them, so I could get to my protection amulet, but the ground kept plumping back up when I tried."

"How did it even get there?"

Meg shrugged. "My guess? Crowley. He screamed when it touched him, and putting it on broke his spell on me, at least temporarily. If I take it off again, I'll turn back into a bird. Hopefully Ruby or someone in her coven will be able to fix it. But he probably wanted to get rid of it, so he hung it up there. Maybe to taunt me. Who knows, really? I don't. It could've just been this place."

"I told you that I marked the way I came. We can use it to get back out."

"Do you really think that the forest is going to _let_ us out?" she asked. "I've been here for ages, Cas, and I've seen paths change."

"You led me to Skulltree."

"I got lucky that day. It's been in the same place for a while now _._ But didn't you notice the path closing up behind you?"

"I can cut through it."

"Unless it changes on you."

"Then what do you suggest we do? Stay here and wait to die?" he snapped.

"No. I'm saying that we pick a direction and walk in a straight line until we find our way out," she snapped back. "That sword I had made for our wedding can cut through spells. If we walk in a straight line, we should eventually find the path out."

Castiel's anger melted away. "That is actually a good idea."

"Thanks. Now, I really think we should try to get some sleep. We'll start tomorrow. Just pick a direction and walk."

"Alright," he agreed. Tucking his cloak around both of them, he reached out and pulled Meg close so she could pillow her head on his shoulder. She sighed softly and closed her eyes, but he stayed awake until her breathing evened out and he was sure she was asleep.

.

Castiel wasn't sure how long he slept; only that it was the first peaceful sleep he'd gotten in ages. His whole body felt heavy, and pleasantly sore from the walking he'd done the day before, and he himself felt perfectly content with the quiet around him.

"Hey," Meg mumbled softly. "You're awake."

He made a small noise to acknowledge that he'd heard her and reached out to brush her hair away from her face. Hers was a few shades darker than his own, but in the torchlight he couldn't tell. She shook him off and sat up to finger-comb it, trying to straighten the mess it had become. It didn't help.

"You hair looks like a bird's nest," he told her. She made a face and smacked him.

"Yours doesn't look much better. Your beard is starting to come back in, too."

He rubbed his jaw. "Well, no shaving until we make it home. How long do you think it'll take?"

Meg shrugged. "Dunno. We'll see, I guess." She stretched, then leaned over and pecked him on the cheek before standing up and straightening her skirt. "Breakfast?"

"I've got two apples left, and some jerky."

"Better than nothing. C'mon. We'll eat on the way."

He helped her straighten the small place, putting away the bedrolls and putting out the torches. Once it was dark again, he felt his way over to the wall just as Meg slammed her palm down on the wall of brambles, opening it up once again for them.

Blinking, they stepped out into the dark forest. The trees still glowed, but the light was dimmer now, more watery, and he could see light beginning to filter through the trees. Drawing his sword, he stood guard as Meg sealed the safe space up behind them again, sticking her finger in her mouth when she was done. When she withdrew the digit, he noticed that the cut was gone.

"Healing magic?" he guessed.

Meg nodded. "Ruby taught me some. Nothing that could be considered Craft, since I'm not allowed to learn that, but enough for me to be able to take care of little things myself. We were always getting scraped up until I came of age and my father decided that I was too old for silly games."

"That's useful." Castiel glanced back and forth along the path. It was narrow, and overgrown with glowing weeds, and both ends looked identical. "Which way to go?"

"You got a coin?"

He dug through his pockets until he came up with a penny. "Heads we go left, tails we go right?"

"Better than nothing. Flip it."

He did, tossing it in the air and catching it in his hand. Meg leaned over his palm, a frown on her face. "Left it is, then. Since you have the sword, you can go in front."

"If we get attacked by something?" he asked, tucking the penny back into his pocket.

"Try not to get eaten," Meg suggested. "Once you've done that, stab what's attacking you."

"If they attack you?"

"Try to catch the amulet when I rip it off and throw it at you, because I'll fly away."

He frowned, and tried to respond, but Meg gave him a slight push. Grumbling, he began to walk down the path, keeping a grip on his sword. After a few minutes, the path doubled in size, simply expanding while he blinked, and became wide enough for he and Meg to walk side-by-side.

"That's considerate of it," he said.

Meg bumped his shoulder with hers. "The trees are kind of pretty, though. Hey, do you remember that one time we snuck up to the roof to watch the stars?"

He gradually relaxed. She'd been seventeen then, a year away from officially accepting or rejecting her father's plans for her to wed. He'd been studying stars back home, and had visited her country to talk to a man who had successfully built a telescope. Azazel had insisted that he come for a visit once he'd heard, and Meg, having gotten information from her father about why he was there, had snuck them up onto the roof that night. They'd spent hours up there, naming constellations, while Castiel told her all he'd learned.

"I remember. Your father thought we were going to fall off and kill ourselves when he found us up there the next morning."

"Dad always worried needlessly. We never actually hurt ourselves. Not seriously, anyway."

"Except for all those times Tom and I beat each other senseless," he grumbled.

"Well, that's different. You two were training, and it wasn't _serious._ Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a few bandages and stitches."

"Mostly I was trying to show off in front of you."

Meg laughed. "Really? I didn't know you put so much stock in my opinion."

"I was young and stupid and wanted to impress the girl I liked."

"When Ruby wanted to impress Benny, she baked him a pie. I would've been fine with a pie."

"Well, I'll remember that next time I'm trying to impress you."

She bumped his shoulder again. "You never got hurt that bad."

"Except for that time that you and Ruby attacked me with sticks."

"We were _playing._ Besides, you knew the rules for Castle Siege were pretty much anything goes."

Just hearing the name made Castiel shudder. Castle Siege had been Ruby, Tom, and Meg's favorite game as a child, and he'd been forced into participating more than once, along with many of the servant's children. It was a game based of some historical battle, where the king and his knights, armed with nothing but their bows, boiling oil, and their swords, had defeated an invading army. Usually, two or three children were picked to be the king and his knights, and whoever was left was forced to play the invaders. The kids playing the good guys would stand on top of a small hill or a pile of wooden boxes, armed with sticks, leaves, and sometimes rocks, while everyone else would rush them. The game ended either when the king and his knights were knocked off their perch, or the invaders gave up.

Azazel had attempted to ban the game at least five times during Castiel's childhood, usually due to bloody noses and sprained fingers, but the children had simply ignored him. Castiel usually came away with a few welts and scrapes, until Meg and Ruby, having gotten sick of losing, had viciously attacked he and Tom with sticks that were longer and thicker than the ones normally used for the game. Tom had come away with a broken finger and Castiel with a broken nose.

Castiel's father, far from being horrified, had given him a lecture on playing rough with women. Azazel had apologized profusely, but Chuck had shrugged it off, saying that children were naturally a little rough around the edges. Afterward, Meg and Ruby were banned from being kings and knights.

"We weren't that bad," Meg said, breaking him out of his memories. "At least we had fun."

"Must I bring up the time you hung me upside down and pelted me with tomatoes again?"

"That was fun for us. Besides, you guys tortured me."

"I never did anything like that."

"I distinctly remember being forced to sit through hours and hours of knitting and doing needlework."

"You're good at needlework and knitting, though," Castiel defended. In fact, he'd kept several items that Meg had made for him over the years, mostly scarves and hats that she'd grumpily knitted while he and his brothers were training with swords and bows and lances.

"Doesn't mean it wasn't torture to have to do it."

"Staying with us in Araboth wasn't all that bad. We had fun. Remember when we snuck out to practice archery? Or those times that we snitched cakes from the kitchens?"

"Those were pretty fun, yeah." Jerking to a halt, Meg grabbed Castiel's arm. "Shit."

"What?"

"Look at the trees."

Confused, Castiel did, and felt his heart jump when he saw the marks that he had made the day before decorating the trunks of the trees nearest to them. "This isn't right."

"I told you things move," Meg grumbled. "It hasn't gotten any lighter, either. The sun doesn't take this long to come up."

Castiel took a closer look at the trees. Sure enough, the leaves were still glowing faintly, and the sunlight peeking through the canopy was watery and weak. "So, do we turn around?"

Meg shook her head. "I don't think so. This could be the woods trying to trick us."

"Do you think the trees are sentient, or the woods as a whole?"

"Dunno. I just think that there's a lot of magic here, and the forest must've soaked a lot of it up. Or Crowley controls everything, and he's just fucking with us. Who knows? But at this point, either the woods is trying to trick us into thinking we're near the entrance and they're leading us somewhere else, or they're trying to trick us into thinking that they're fucking with us so they can turn us around so they can lead us into something bad. Either way, I say that we stick with the original plan and keep going in this direction. It's better than walking in circles."

"Okay. But stay close."

"Keep an eye out for any weird shadows," Meg advised.

They walked for what felt like hours, sharing an apple between them, but the sun rose no higher in the sky. Neither did it seem to sink again. Every once in a while a growl would echo from somewhere in the forest, causing the both of them to freeze in panic. But the sounds never moved any closer, and for the moment Castiel was convinced that they were safe.

Eventually, the path narrowed again. "I think there's an opening ahead. The way out, maybe?"

Meg shook her head. "There's no way it could be that easy."

"Well, let's see." Holding his hand out, he wiggled his fingers. "Just in case?"

"If you wanted to hold my hand, you just had to ask," she teased, gripping his hand anyway. Castiel fought the urge to roll his eyes and led her forward.

They stepped into a clearing with a large, bare tree stretching toward the dawn sky. A ring of grinning skulls surrounded it.

"Oh, no," Castiel groaned. He heard Meg swallow loudly behind him.

"Yeah, shit," she whispered. Moving next to him, she raised her other hand to act as a visor and squinted. "Wait, there's something on the tree. Let's get closer."

"Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Probably not. But we gotta go past it to keep going in a straight line, anyway. I'd rather get close to the creepy tree surrounded by skulls than chance the shadows at the edge of the woods."

"I see your point. Just stick close."

Meg shot him a sour look, but obeyed him, squeezing his hand as they cautiously walked toward the tree. As they got closer, Castiel noticed that the shimmering wall that signaled that the tree was surrounded by magic was there, visible even in the weak sunlight.

"Well, that's not good," Meg commented when they got close enough to stand in front of it. Castiel felt his knees tremble, but forced himself to stay upright as his fiancée gazed up at the body hanging from the branches. The corpse's arms were stretched high above its head, leather wrapped around its wrists to keep it hanging from the tree. It was headless, with the sun-kissed flesh around the stump of the neck curling slightly inward. The corpse's black tunic was torn in the middle, exposing a gaping hole that was devoid of innards. One leg was missing, the fabric around the stump shredded. A faint breeze stirred the clearing, sending the body swaying back and forth. There were no flies on the body, the spell around the tree having blocked anything from going near it.

"Tammy," Meg breathed.

"How can you tell?" Castiel asked, unable to tear himself away from the pinkish hole in the corpse's belly.

"She was the only one who got her innards torn out, and she's missing a leg," Meg explained. She pointed at the tree, and Castiel followed her finger to see a small stag sewn on the breast of the corpse's tunic. "She made that herself."

"It could be a trick," Castiel suggested. Meg shook her head.

"No," she told him, "it's a warning. Crowley knows we're here. Let's keep moving."

"You don't want me to cut her down?"

Meg shook her head. "And do what with her body? We don't have anything to bury her or burn her with, and we can't take her with us."

"We can't just leave her there," Castiel said firmly, raising his sword. "It's disrespectful."

"Do you really wanna break the spell around that tree again? We don't know what it'll trigger. Crowley could be playing on our human sympathies."

He lowered his sword again. "I think you're overthinking this. He may just be trying to scare us."

"Well, it worked," Meg snapped. "We need to keep moving. We shouldn't be dallying."

"It'll only take a second," Castiel promised. He raised his sword again and brought it down on one of the skulls around the tree. The air shrieked for a second, the magic around the tree crackling before a high-pitched whistle emitted from the remaining skulls. Meg fell to her knees behind him, hands thrown over her ears, and Castiel followed her.

Then, out of nowhere, the shadows came.

Everything around him seemed to be moving in slow-motion; the shadows, the trees, the corpse, Meg. She lunged for him, grabbing his hand and tugging at his arm to force him to move, her mouth opening and closing without sound as his ears buzzed. The shadows advanced slowly, looking like nothing more than flat, shapeless blobs that glided over the grass.

Stumbling to his feet, he gripped his sword and followed Meg into the trees, the corpse forgotten. In an instant his hearing returned, and the cold, terrible sound of howling broke the silence.

"Run!" Meg screeched at him. "Cas, keep running!"

He tried to keep up with her, stumbling on the uneven path as they crashed through the trees, Meg flinging aside branches and zig-zagging through the undergrowth. The howls grew closer, and he saw a black blur out of the corner of his eye. Meg saw it, too, and swerved away from the shadow, tugging him deeper into the forest.

But it was useless. She skidded to a halt as one of the shadows darted in front of them. He turned around to run the other way when more of them materialized, surrounding them. The shadows grew, slowly taking form until they resembled large, skinny dogs with glowing red eyes and sharp, black teeth. The one in front of them let out a vicious growl, opening its mouth so its long, grey tongue poked out from between its teeth. Black slime fell from its mouth like drool, hissing when it hit the forest floor. The shadow dogs began to circle them. They made no sound, but the plants withered and died under their paws when they touched them, leaving behind a greyish slime.

"Clarence, your sword," Meg whispered.

"Are you going to fly?" he asked her.

"I'm gonna try not to. Listen, we'll break behind us and climb the tree, and see what to do from there. I think I can take out all of them now that I've recharged a little."

"How?"

"Fight magic with magic, right?" Meg's lips twitched in the beginning of a smile.

The dogs charged.

Castiel swung the sword, screeching. He expected the sword to cut through the dog's bodies as easily as if he was moving a sword through water, but they felt solid when the steel hit them. The shadow creatures even whined and whimpered like real dogs, yelping when his sword sunk into their bodies. Their blood bubbled up under his steel, black and foul-smelling. When one died, its body simply melted away.

He spun in a circle, slashing and stabbing, trying to hit each one as it flew at them. But more and more kept materializing from the forest, circling outside of his current attackers, waiting to take its place when he killed it.

"Meg, there's too many!" he shouted, narrowly avoiding one of the creatures when it lunged at him. Its teeth snapped together inches from his arm without a sound.

"Keep backing up!" Meg called. "Just keep moving backward until you hit the tree! Then climb!"

He obeyed her, sheathing his sword and turning to scramble up the tree behind them as soon as his back hit the bark. The shadow dogs rushed forward and began snapping at his legs. He kicked out wildly, cursing when his shoes went through their forms without harming them, and tried to haul himself up onto the branch where Meg was perched. Her eyes were wide and wild, darting from side to side as she clung to the wood.

Screaming when he felt one of the dogs sink its teeth into his foot, Castiel nearly lost his grip. Meg leapt forward and grabbed his hand, nearly falling herself as the creature dangled from Castiel's leg. All around them the pack began howling, leaping up to try to join their brother in dragging Castiel to the ground.

Grunting with effort, Castiel kicked wildly as Meg tried to haul him up, sweaty fingers slipping against his skin. He gave a sharp kick, shook the beast off, heard it yelp as it hit the ground, and suddenly he was free. Climbing up beside Meg, he threw himself into her arms and pressed the two of them against the tree trunk, panting.

The pack circled below them, eerily silent, their red eyes fixed on their prey.

"Get behind me," Meg rasped.

Scrambling to obey her, Castiel hauled himself up onto a higher branch as Meg carefully maneuvered herself forward, balancing on her heels with her arms stretched out toward the ground.

"Fire, fire, straight from Hell, come to me and serve me well," she panted, growling in frustration when nothing happened. The dogs seemed to smile at her, their dark jowls stretching wider to show off their teeth, and began rushing at the tree. They threw themselves against it, shaking the branches, but Meg didn't waver. "Fire, fire, straight from Hell, come to me and serve me well," she repeated. Castiel clung to his branch as it shook, sending waxy leaves spiraling toward the forest floor.

"Meg, what are you doing?" he yelled as she leaned dangerously to the side with the tree's motions. "Meg, get closer to the trunk!"

She ignored him, stretched her arms out as far as they could go, and yelled, "Fire, fire, straight from Hell, come to me and serve me well!"

Blue fire blazed from her palms, flowing toward the forest floor. Gaping, Castiel squeezed his eyes shut against the blinding light, hearing yelps and unnatural screeches as the fire caught the shadow dogs. The putrid smell of rotten meat burning came to his nose.

He kept his eyes squeezed shut until he felt a hand on his shoulder. "They're gone."

Opening his eyes, he turned and looked at Meg. She was shaking, and looked as if all the blood had drained out of her body. "How did you do that?"

"Ruby taught me," she told him. "Last year. In case I ever needed it. I really hoped I'd never need it."

"I'm glad she taught you."

Meg glared at him. "I told you cutting into those spells was a bad idea."

"How was I supposed to know this was about to happen?" he snapped.

Meg snarled at him, her snarl turning into a yelp when the tree shook. Falling backward, she landed on the branch below them with a heavy thump, managing to hook her legs around it just in time as she continued to topple. Castiel scrambled to grab her, yelping when another tremor shook the forest and he fell, too.

Meg grabbed his hand as he shot past her, face straining with the effort and arms trembling. He tried to claw his way upward, but the excitement of the chase was fading, and his foot throbbed with pain.

"Don't let go," Meg ground out. "Don't look at the ground, and don't let go."

Unable to obey her, Castiel looked at the ground and screamed. There were deep, dark pits where the bodies of the shadow dogs had dissolved, opening great holes in the scorched earth that were already filling up with plant life. The undergrowth seemed to expand like a river, flowing upward every time he blinked. The leaves glowed and rustled as they grew.

Screaming, Castiel tried to haul himself upward, hampered by his heavy pack.

"Just drop it," Meg screeched, still dangling upside down from the branch. "Just get rid of it!"

He tried, moving one hand away from Meg's to shrug the pack's strap off his shoulder. His sweaty hand slipped in hers as the greenery crept closer. Meg's hair swung into his eyes as he readjusted his grip and tried to push himself up, feet scrambling for purchase as the vines and thorns brushed against his foot.

One of the vines shot out and wrapped around the ankle of his injured foot, the spines on it biting through his pants and leggings to sink deep into his flesh. Screeching, he gripped Meg's hands harder and pulled to drag himself upward. Another vine crept up his leg to join the first, digging into his tender skin and pulling back.

"Don't let go," Meg gasped when his hands began to slip from hers. "Cas, don't let go."

He tried to hold onto her, but their hands were slippery with sweat and the vines were too strong. His left hand slipped first, causing his pack to plummet down into the sea of greenery rising up below them. Meg gripped his right hand with both of hers and gave his hand a last, futile tug before it slipped through hers as well.

He heard her scream and caught a glimpse of her wide, terrified eyes before he plunged downward into the undergrowth and growing green leaves filled his vision. For a moment or two it seemed like he was falling through something soft, as if he'd thrown himself down onto his featherbed at home, before his head smacked against something hard and his vision swam around the edges. He felt more vines creep around his limbs, encircling his uninjured leg and wrists and neck, choking off his air, before the black tendrils creeping across his vision expanded and everything went black.


	4. Stranger Than You Dreamt It

Some special content warnings for this chapter specifically: It contains hallucinations, drowning, vomit, blood, childbirth, heavy body horror, and very large spiders.

.

He woke in a clearing with the noontime sun blazing down on him.

Groaning, Castiel felt the slimy grass under him and sat up. His head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, his mouth felt heavy, and his limbs ached with pain, but he was alive. His pack was missing.

Keeping his eyes closed tightly, he clutched his throbbing head and moaned. "Meg?"

He opened his eyes when she didn't answer, and swallowed down a scream when he saw where he was.

The bare, dead tree ringed by skulls stretched toward the sky a few feet away from him, the black, empty sockets of the skulls staring at his face as he scrambled away from them. Tammy's body was gone. This time, there was nothing hanging from the branches.

Forcing himself to his feet, Castiel took two steps away from the tree before his injured leg gave out and he fell back onto the ground. He tried to crawl for the trees instead, dragging his injured leg behind him as he tried desperately to get away from the tree ringed by skulls. The grass under his palms felt slippery, and left the same oily residue behind as the leaves on the trees had. The dirt was hot from the sun, and felt oddly spongy as he felt it plump back up under his hands, even as he flattened it.

When he reached the edge of the clearing, he screamed.

All of the trees in his vision that ringed the clearing bore the small, parallel slashes that he'd made to mark his way through the forest. A strange, high-pitched giggle flowed from the leaves, mocking him. Despite the sun shining above him, the leaves glowed brightly with the giggle, the light fading again when the trees fell silent.

Scrabbling at the ground, Castiel found a long, thick stick and used it to help haul himself to his feet again. Shaking, he scanned the clearing for any sign of Meg or the shadow dogs or his backpack. He saw no evidence of anything in the clearing, not even an indent in the grass where his body had been.

The skulls stared back at him, grinning. One of them, its jaw still attached, floated up into the air.

"She is not here," it said in a small, slimy voice. The skull's jaw didn't move when it spoke, but Castiel saw two faint lights shining in the empty eye sockets. "You will not find her."

"Is this the forest speaking to me, or Crowley?" he asked the skull. He tried to keep his voice calm, but his hands began to shake, betraying his nerves.

"Both. Neither. They are one in the same now."

He pursed his lips. "I see."

"Do you?"

"I believe I do. Thank you for the answers."

"Whatever you believe you know, it does not matter. You still will not find your whore."

Castiel ignored the jab and nodded courteously at the skull. "I thank you none the less."

The light dimmed in the skull's eye sockets, then went out altogether. It hovered in the air for another moment before falling to the forest floor with a small thump. He looked at it for a minute longer, waiting to see if it would talk again, or if any of the other skulls would speak. When they did not, he turned and limped into the forest, using the stick to help him walk. His injured foot hurt every time he put pressure on it, forcing him to drag it behind him. He ignored the pain and focused on finding Meg.

He walked for what felt like hours, limping down the path while his eyes darted back and forth, looking for any signs of supernatural forces. But there was nothing except for the dirt path and strange, silent trees. The sun didn't move from its position in the sky, making it impossible for him to chart how much time had passed. His injured leg throbbed in pain.

Eventually, he was too tired to go on, and fell onto the dirt. Trembling, he managed to maneuver himself into the bushes that lined the path and tried to sleep, praying that the bushes would offer some protection. When he woke, he struggled back onto the path and began walking again.

The sun never moved.

Castiel wasn't sure how long he walked down the dirt path. It seemed to stretch in front of him forever, endless and unchanging. When he grew tired, he shuffled into the bushes to sleep. When he woke, he walked for as long as he could before his body gave up on him. His foot grew worse, pus oozing from the bite marks and pooling in his boot. The scratches from the vines stung every time he moved them, stretching the healing skin, causing the wounds to reopen and leak blood. He walked less and less each time he woke as hunger gnawed at his belly and thirst sapped the moisture from his throat, and he was sure that he was going to die there without finding Meg.

Eventually, he fell and could not get up again.

Groaning, he probed his chapped lips with his tongue and felt the skin split. Blood bubbled from the cuts, salty and bitter, but he could not resist lapping at the wounds. The leafy canopy spun above him, wavering in and out of focus, before it began to glitter and expand. Castiel rolled onto his eyes and squeezed his eyes shut, wishing futilely that he had held on to his pack with its supply of water and meager store of food. He would've given anything for a small, bruised apple or strip of dry, bitter jerky, or even just one sip of warm water.

When he opened his eyes, a new tree had sprung up in front of him, its branches hanging low with ripe, green pears. The fruit looked unnaturally bright, with sparkling emerald skin and crisp, new-looking leaves, and he found himself reaching for it without thinking, fingers curling around the fruit until his fingernails pierced the delicate skin, sending sticky juice running down his fingers.

It smelled like heaven, and felt firm in his palm. He pressed the pear to his face and inhaled its sweet, sharp scent, stomach rumbling with hunger. Meg's warnings about not eating the food crept into his mind, but the pear smelt so good, and he was so hungry, that he could not help but take a bite.

It tasted like fresh fruit and jam, like the scent of summer days settling deep in the back of his throat and rain in the air, like sweet cakes and honey. He devoured it, sinking his teeth into the tender fruit again and again until the juice dribbled down his chin and neck. When it was finished, he reached out and took another, and then another, until his hunger was finally sated and his stomach was full for the first time in what felt like weeks. New strength flowed through his limbs, and his foot ceased throbbing in pain.

Getting to his feet, Castiel stared down at the remains of his meal. Revulsion swept through him as his head cleared. Meg had warned him about eating the food the forest provided, but he had done it, anyway. He knew he had to try to find one of the safe places, but Meg had never taught him how to identify them, and the path he'd been walking had been the same for what felt like several days. Unless he went crashing through the trees, he would be stuck there when whatever hallucinations the food brought on struck him.

Grabbing his stick, Castiel limped hastily down the path, gripping the wood with both hands when the dirt began to rise and fall rhythmically under his feet, rolling like the waves he'd seen at the ocean as a child. Closing his eyes, he tried to ground himself, recalling the day that Azazel and Chuck had rounded up their children and brought them to the shore. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't picture his father's animated face or Azazel's stern expressions, or the way Meg's eyes had lit up when she saw the ocean. Instead, all he could picture were the waves, the way the crystal blue sea had rolled onto the land.

When he opened his eyes, the dirt path under him was gone, replaced with water that rushed around his ankles in a gray-green tide. It foamed when it hit him, and gently tugged at the legs of his pants, encouraging him to walk. He stared down at the water, dread creeping into his stomach, and squeezed his eyes shut again.

"It isn't real, it isn't real, it isn't real," he chanted to himself as he walked, using the stick to probe the ground in front of him so he would not walk over unseen ridges or rocks. "It isn't real, it isn't real, it isn't real."

But it felt real. He could smell the salt from the sea, could feel his leggings and trousers hanging heavy from the water clinging to them, and could feel the waves lapping at his body. Daring to look again, he saw thousands of small, brightly colored fish swimming past his legs, each one sparkling like a gemstone. The forest still rose around him, but he was unable to see the path under the cloudy water, even if he could feel it under his feet. Suddenly afraid of creatures lurking in the murky river, he lunged for the nearest tree to scramble up the branches. But the wood crumbled under his hands, the bark slipping through his fingers in jagged chunks. The pieces vanished before they hit the water, sparkling as they tumbled downward.

Scrambling backward, his back hit a tree on the other side of the path. The trunk of that one crumbled under his touch, too, sending him crashing toward the ground. The water flowed outward from the path and into the place where the tree had been and rose around him, covering his head. He flailed, tried to stand, and fell back into the water. It frothed around his eyes, stinging, and flowed down his nose and into his mouth as he screamed. It felt heavy in his lungs and burned like fire. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to push himself up again.

Then it was gone.

Coughing, Castiel rolled onto his hands and knees and heaved, trying to expel the water from his belly. When nothing came up, he opened his eyes and saw that the ground under him wasn't wet, and that there was no evidence of water having been there at all. Moving slowly, he raised one arm and felt his face and hair, confusing when he found that it was perfectly dry, aside from his sweat.

Confused, he looked up and saw the tree that he had crashed into. It was still standing, its leaves perfectly still, and there was so evidence of water on it, either.

Gulping down air, he turned so his back was resting against the tree and tried to control his breathing when a high, feminine scream tore through the air.

Recognizing Meg's voice, he struggled to his feet. Grabbing his walking stick, he limped in the direction of her screams, frantically calling her name. Moving as fast as he could, Castiel crashed through the greenery, swatting aside branches with his stick and arms as thorns from the low-growing plants sliced into his clothing and drew blood. The sun vanished without warning, lighting up the trees with their eerie, green glow as moonlight spilled through the gaps in the canopy above him.

Meg's screams stopped when he stumbled into a small, oval shaped clearing. He saw her on the other side, near the tree line. Naked, her belly was swollen with child, skin stretched taunt over the bulge. Her hair was in disarray, strands wrapped around the weeds poking up through the ground, and there was blood pooled under her body. Her skin looked pale gray in the moonlight.

Stumbling across the clearing, he fell to his knees next to her and raised her head into his lap, trying to shake her awake. Her head lolled with his motions, and he recoiled when he saw a large, jagged wound across her throat that still leaked blood.

"No. No, no, no," he moaned. "Meg, wake up. Wake up!"

The body under him didn't stir. Instead, he saw part of her belly bulge outward, as if something was pushing at her skin from inside, trying to break free.

He couldn't think clearly. Sliding her head out of his lap, Castiel worked his way down Meg's body and gently laid both hands on her swollen stomach. Whatever was inside of her pushed again. He was certain that there hadn't been enough time for their child, if they had conceived one, to grow that large, but Meg had told him that time moved differently in the forest, and there she was in front of him, belly swollen with the evidence of their coupling.

And she was dead. Dead because he hadn't reached her in time, because they'd gotten separated and he hadn't found a way to get them out of the woods where she was trapped. Tears began to gather in the corner of his eyes, spilling over when he pressed his ear to Meg's stomach and heard a strong, steady heartbeat.

The baby was still alive.

Fumbling with his boot, Castiel tried to extract his small dagger, but the tears in his eyes made it impossible for him to see. Finally grabbing it with slippery fingers, he wiped the tears from his eyes and tried not to look at Meg's face.

"I'm sorry," he choked. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

He rested the point of his dagger on his skin and took a deep breath to steady himself when he saw how badly his hands were shaking. He stopped, cleared his eyes of tears once again, and prepared to sink the dagger into Meg's dead flesh when the baby pushed against her stomach again and a tiny ripping sound came from Meg's body.

Horrified, Castiel watched as Meg's stomach split open. Blood bubbled from the small wound, but did not flow. The small cut expanded, opening wider and wider, until a small hand poked out from the slit. Castiel reached forward, intent on helping the child, when a long, thin leg covered in fine brown hair emerged after the hand.

He scrabbled backward with a yelp, dropping his dagger on the grass as he slid away from Meg's body. There was a small, sloppy sound, like melons dropping on stone, and the slit widened yet again, another hand emerging followed by five more long, thin appendages that resembled spider's legs. The creature in Meg's belly let out a small screeching noise as it emerged, covered in fluids, and skittered down her body.

Its top half looked like a baby, with chubby cheeks and a soft, fat stomach. Unable to support the weight of its head, it lolled from side to side on the thing's neck as its bright blue eyes, an exact replica of his, darted around the clearing. It was covered in slick, red blood and fluids that plastered its black hair to its head. But the thing changed at the stomach, the body expanding behind it like a large, horrifying insect covered in fine, dark hair. Six narrow, pointed legs extended from the main body, supporting the thing as it skittered closer and closer to Castiel. It moved awkwardly, slipping on the blood soaked grass, legs splaying out in all directions before it righted itself and continued moving forward.

Trembling, Castiel snatched his dagger up off the ground and continued to push himself backward, swinging wildly at the slowly-advancing creature. The monster skittered forward, undeterred. Suddenly, its head straightened, and it fixed its deep blue eyes with his, as if looking into his very soul. The creature's perfect pink lips opened, revealing a row of pointed teeth, before it spoke in a high, feminine voice.

"Daddy? Daddy, why are you crying?" it asked, reaching out one short, fat arm.

Heart pounding, Castiel scrambled away until his back hit a tree. The rough bark bit into his torn clothes, scraping his skin. He wanted to run, to turn and leave the woods and the malformed creature that he and Meg had created behind, but his legs seemed frozen. Unable to tear his eyes away, he could only watch as his daughter moved closer, stretching out both arms as if asking for a hug.

"Don't you love me, daddy?" she asked, skittering to a stop between his spread legs. Shaking, Castiel pressed himself against the tree. "You and mommy made me together. You loved me when you made me, didn't you? You love mommy."

Swallowing hard, Castiel tried to open his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a dry, brittle rasp. The spider girl laughed at him when she heard it, pink lips spreading unnaturally wide into smile that showed off rows and rows of pointed teeth. He slashed at her with his dagger, but aimed wildly and missed, causing her to laugh again.

She walked up his body on delicate spider legs, the points hooking into his flesh and drawing blood from half a dozen wounds. Pain shot through as body as if he'd been stabbed, and his daughter smiled wider. He felt something warm and wet run down his leg, and realized almost distantly that he had wet himself. Heart hammering in his chest, Castiel couldn't even spare enough emotion to feel shame, not with the rows of needles inches from his face.

"You killed her," she said, leaning forward so her teeth were even with his face. "Now you're going to die, too."

His daughter's teeth, sharper than any knife or sword, sank into his nose, neatly severing it and sending blood pouring down his face. Screaming, Castiel swatted at her and brought his knife down into her insectlike body again and again. But she only continued laughing at him, bringing her teeth down onto his face to chew off parts of his cheeks as if she did not feel the blows.

But Castiel could feel them. He kicked his legs wildly, twisting and bucking, but she somehow stayed in place. Her teeth felt like fire in his face as she ripped the flesh away, and he could feel cold air rushing to fill the gaps she left behind in his face as she chewed and swallowed, cruelly ripping away his skin and fat and muscle.

She pulled away and smiled at him. Blood lined her teeth, pink and frothing like the ocean. "I love you, daddy," she said, and then kissed him, small lips soft and plush against his own. He struggled, trying to push her away, but he felt the child laugh against his mouth as she forced her small tongue past his lips and gripped his tongue with her teeth, severing the organ and making it impossible for him to even scream as she ate away at his lips and tongue and chin until the lower half of his face was gone. Her teeth shaved through bone, through everything he was, until he was sure that he would die.

And then it was over.

Screeching, he rolled wildly onto his side, fists and dagger batting at the empty air as he panted, still fighting. When he realized that the creature was gone, he leaped to his feet and scanned the clearing, looking for any signs that the creature was still there, or of Meg's body, but he found none. Shaking, he cautiously ran his fingers over his face, relieved to find it intact.

Then, falling to his knees, he doubled over and vomited onto the grass again and again, his whole body heaving with the effort. The vomit tasted sour in his mouth, like rotting meat, even though the small puddle of half-digested food under him sparkled like emeralds.

He fell heavily onto his side, rolled away from the mess, curled himself into a ball, and began to cry, praying that all of the food had been purged from his body. The pain, the terror, all of it had felt so real that he knew he would never forget the strange creature he had seen, or the sensation of having the flesh torn from his face. His body shook as his tears ran down his face and in that moment he stopped caring about the world around him. He didn't care if Crowley's shadow dogs found him there, unable to protect himself, and dragged him away, didn't care if the witch himself appeared to finish him right then. He squeezed his eyes shut to stifle the tears and found himself praying that, when he opened them again, he would be back in his bedroom in Araboth, snug under the blankets in his own bed, and that the nightmare of the woods had been nothing but a bad dream before his wedding.

His tears eventually stopped on their own. He stayed where he was, curled up on the grass, breathing in the steadying scent of dirt and nature. He didn't know how long he lay there, waiting for the growling of the shadow dogs or another vision to hit. But nothing came, even as the glowing green light on the trees faded and the sun peeked over the horizon, bathing him with warmth.

More screams broke with the dawn, echoing through the forest. Unlike before, they weren't anonymous screams of the dead, or Meg's screams. This time, the screams sounded like his siblings. He heard Gabriel's voice, high and shrill with pain, heard Michael praying in an increasingly panicked voice as growls rose out of the forest with his voice. He even heard Lucifer.

Lucifer had died at home, bleeding inside of his brain after falling from his horse and dashing his head against a rock while he was hunting. Here, in the forest, Castiel once again heard his brother's small moans of pain as he lingered for days in his bed, his injuries too great for the castle healer to fix. They sounded exactly like they had ten years ago. When Castiel had been a child, Lucifer's death rattle had sounded as loud as thunder, and there in the woods, he felt like a child again when he heard them.

But Lucifer was dead and gone, and couldn't possibly be in the forest with him.

Castiel covered his ears with his hands and curled himself into a ball to block out the voices, but they kept coming. Anna's voice joined the chorus, shrieking as if she was being tortured. Hael's voice came next, then Hannah's, her small, high voice impossibly loud. Last of all he heard his parent's, heard his father shouting as Castiel had imagined Chuck had shouted during the last moments of his life. He heard is mother's screams of childbirth.

Castiel gritted his teeth and pressed his hands harder against his ears to fight the sounds. But they grew louder and louder, as if they were moving closer, and he was unable to block them out until he, too, began to scream.

"Not real, not real, not real!" he screeched, curling up as tightly as he could. "Not real, not real, not real, not real!"

He heard a crashing sound, like someone running through the bushes, but he refused to open his eyes, not caring what it was, or if it would kill him. Meg's voice joined the screaming around him, but her voice was full of worry instead of pain. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and felt something shake him, and heard Meg's voice screaming his name.

"Castiel! Castiel, stop screaming!" Meg yelled. "Whatever you're seeing, it isn't real!"

"You're not real!" he yelled back. "Let go of me! Enough!"

"I'm real," Meg promised. "I'm real. Open your eyes. I'm right here!"

"You're lying," he whimpered. "It's a lie. You're not real. You were dead. I saw you."

"I'm not dead. I'm right here. Look at me, Clarence. Open your eyes," Meg coaxed. "Open your eyes."

He shook his head and tried to inch away from her, but Meg forcibly grabbed him and rolled him onto his back. Straddling him, she grabbed his face in both hands and tore his hands away from his ears. He looked, and then he screamed.

It was Meg, still dressed in her feathered gown, but her eyes were gone, replaced by two deep, black holes. Fresh blood glistened wet and scarlet on her cheeks, and there were chunks of flesh missing from her bare arms as well, the wounds weeping red and raw against her pale skin. The bodice of the gown had been torn away, exposing her chest. The skin between her breasts had been torn open, exposing her ribs and heart, which lay still between her lungs.

He twisted under her, trying to buck her off of him and reaching out to rake his nails down his face. Unlike the other hallucinations, which seemed to feel no pain when he injured them, the Meg straddling him pulled away, as if afraid of getting hurt. Strength flowed through his limbs, and he began to fight harder, managing to throw the hallucination off.

He wriggled onto his stomach and tried to crawl away, unable to look into Meg's ruined face again. He only managed to move a few feet when the hallucination's weight settled on his back again and he felt cold, clammy hands probe his skin.

"I don't know what you're seeing, but whatever it is, it isn't real," Meg told him. "I'm real. And I'm healthy and alive. I promise."

Castiel pressed his face into the dirt and shook his head. "Not real, not real."

"Cas, I'm real," she said softly. "I'm real. Just calm down and come with me. We have to move. If I found you, something else will."

He whimpered and shook his head again. "No. No more. Please, please, no more."

"Castiel, get up. Get up and come with me. It isn't safe here," the hallucination pleaded. "Don't make me get violent."

"You will. It always does. You always were. I loved you, anyway."

Meg's voice became sharper, more demanding. "Get up. Now. Get the _fuck up_ and come with me."

He went completely limp under her and let out a small breath. "No."

"Don't make me hurt you."

"You'll do whatever you want, then you'll disappear, and I'll be back to normal. Fighting it is pointless. Do whatever you want. You can't use her to hurt me anymore."

The hallucination grunted in frustration above him. "I'll apologize for this when you're making sense again."

He jerked. Hallucinations didn't apologize.

He started to roll over when something hard knocked him in the back of the head and his vision swam. He felt hands gently stroke the back of his neck as black fingers crept across his eyes, and felt a soft kiss to his head just before he fainted.


	5. Joy Today and Bliss Tomorrow

He woke to soft fingers on his cheek and lukewarm water being poured onto his lips. Groaning, he turned his head away to avoid the water, feeling it run down his cheek when he did. His mouth tasted sour, his throat felt as though it had been scraped raw, and his head was pounding. His injured foot ached.

"You alive, Clarence?"

Opening one eye, he saw Meg leaning over him, a small frown on her face. She sported several small cuts on her cheeks, which were smeared lightly with blood, and there were twigs stuck in her hair. But she had both her eyes, and her arms were perfectly intact.

He sat up slowly, waiting for the world to change again and for horrible wounds to bloom on Meg's body. But the sun still shone, and the dirt under him stayed solid. Wherever Meg had taken him, it was different from the other safe place she'd found. The clearing was small, maybe ten feet from one side to the other, and bordered by trees that reminded him of bars. The branches stretched upward, forming an arch above his head.

Meg snapped her fingers in front of his face to make him focus. He took the offered water skin when she pressed it to his lips and drank deep, reaching up to place his hand over her own so she would not take it away.

"Slow," Meg ordered. "You'll be puking everywhere again if you don't pace yourself."

He took a last sip and lowered the water skin. "Sorry."

The corners of her lips twitched. "Welcome back."

"How did you even find me?" Castiel asked her.

"I heard you screaming and followed that," Meg told him. "I wasn't sure if it was the forest or you, but I had to try. I just got lucky, I guess. What happened to you?"

"I was so hungry," he said. "I couldn't help myself."

"You ate the food?" Meg guessed. "What did the forest try to give you? Apples? Pomegranates?"

"Pears," he said. "I've never tasted anything so sweet."

"You're lucky you threw them up. You'd still be seeing things if you hadn't."

He shuddered. "Thank God."

"Sorry for knocking you out, by the way. But you refused to come with me."

"I thought you were another hallucination. When I looked at you, you didn't have any eyes, and there were great chunks of flesh missing from your arms. I thought you would try to kill me like-" Castiel swallowed and looked away. "It doesn't matter."

"What did you see?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

Meg snorted. "Cut the bullshit, Clarence."

"I saw you," he blurted. "Not at first. First I drowned. There was water everywhere, and fish, and it felt so real, and then I fell and it rushed up over me and down my lungs and I drowned. When it went away, I was perfectly dry. I heard you screaming, after, and I tried to find you. Then I did."

"It wasn't me," Meg said gently. "You know it wasn't."

"But it felt so real," he said. "I crashed into a clearing and I saw you on the ground. You were naked, and pregnant, and dead."

Meg whistled. "Shit."

Castiel nodded. "Yes. I heard the baby's heart beating, and then I went to cut it out of you, to see if I could save it. But it wasn't a baby. It ripped its way out of you, and it was a monster. We made a monster."

"We didn't. It wasn't real."

"I know that now, but it felt so real. Your body was so cold, and hard, and the child's teeth were so sharp. And her voice was-she sounded like you. Exactly like you. She looked like us, too. She had your hair and nose, and she had my eyes." He hunched over and shook his head. "I want to go home."

Meg moved to lay her head on his shoulder. "Me, too."

He reached down and laced his fingers through hers. "I'm glad you're not dead."

She barked a laugh, but squeezed his hand. "Thanks. I'm glad nothing got you, either."

"Crowley, or the forest, or whatever it is, it isn't going to let us leave," Castiel said quietly. "I spoke to it."

Meg sat up quickly, eyes wide. "What? You _talked_ to Crowley? Where?"

"I'm not sure if I talked to him or the trees," he said slowly. "After the plants took me, I woke up in the Skulltree clearing. One of the skulls spoke to me."

"You were just hallucinating."

Castiel shook his head. "No, I wasn't. This was before I ate the pears."

"So, you talked to it. What did it say?"

"It said that the woods would never let us go, and that I would never find you."

"Well, you did find me," Meg pointed out. "So it clearly didn't know what it was talking about."

"I didn't find you. _You_ found _me,_ " Castiel corrected. "So, technically, the skull was right."

"Are you a prince or a lawyer?"

He shot her an annoyed look. "Meg, _listen._ The skull also said that Crowley and the woods are one in the same now. I think that's why you were able to find Skulltree in the same place three days in a row, and why you were able to find me after we got separated. It means he's weak. I think it means that, the weaker he is, the weaker the magic that controls this place is. But I also think that if he dies, this goes back to being an ordinary forest."

"You think so?"

He shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. It's just a theory. But it couldn't hurt."

"You're suggesting that we find him and kill him?" Meg asked. "Even though we have no idea how his magic works, or how powerful he really is, and even though it's most likely a suicide mission?"

He locked eyes with her. "That's exactly what I'm suggesting."

She gave him a toothy smile. "I knew I loved you for a reason. Let's do it. If I die, I wanna die facing that bastard down. I'm not getting eaten by trees or shadow dogs."

"I agree," Castiel said. "We die facing the enemy. But I will try to take him with me. You have to promise me that you will flee, if that is what happens. Leave me and go. Fly, if you must."

Meg snorted. "Not a chance, Clarence."

"I know your country has different customs, but if I'm recalling your cousin's wedding correctly, you still promise to obey your spouse. Sort of."

"You're thinking of your cousin's wedding. We don't do that. Besides, you're not my husband yet," Meg said dryly. "Anyway, no one in their right mind would listen to that bullshit. I know you wouldn't, if I told you to leave me to die while you ran away."

"You have two working feet," he pointed out. "I don't even know how bad mine are."

"Not that bad," Meg told him. "I had to get your pants off to give them a bit of a wash, so I took a look at your foot while you were sleeping, and I tinkered with it a little. It won't hold up without proper medical attention. Ruby didn't teach me enough healing magic to fix it completely, and I don't have a talent for it, anyway. But it should be enough to get us out of here. Maybe. Depends on how badly we're injured in the fight with Crowley. If we live through it. But neither of us leaves the other behind. Agreed?"

He pursed his lips. Shame flooded him for a moment when he remembered that he had wet himself while facing the hallucination, but Meg didn't seem to be judging him for it, so he pushed it out of his mind. "Agreed."

Meg nodded. "Good. I found your pack, by the way, when the plants receded. So there's food."

She helped him to his feet and led him to a small, square table at the center of their hideaway. His pack was covered in twigs and leaves, and the remaining food was squished and bruised, but Castiel almost wept at the sight of it. After the hallucinations, he would've gladly eaten bugs without complaint, and was more grateful than he'd ever been in his life for regular food. His injured foot still ached, but it no longer throbbed in pain when he walked on it. He tore at a strip of jerky and slowly sipped at his water while Meg walked to the other side of the hideout and rummaged around in the branches.

Swallowing the last of his jerky, he stared at her. "What is this place?"

"Jo and I called it the Birdcage," Meg answered, still rummaging through the branches. "This was the first safe place we found, and I was still a bird when we found it, so we thought it fit." Meg let out a small sound of triumph, clearly finding what she was looking for, and walked back over to the table. She smiled at him and placed a small, wooden cup in front of him before sinking into the other chair.

"What is that for?"

She ignored the question. "Give me your sword, will you?"

Even though he was confused, he obeyed her, and took his dagger out of his boot when Meg motioned to it. She pushed the pack off the table and finger-combed her hair, trying to force it into order. There were still twigs and bits of leaves stuck in her tresses, but they only made her seem lovelier, like some sort of forest creature rather than a princess.

She stood once she was finished, and gestured for him to do the same. "Do you want to get married today?"

Stunned, he sat back down. "What?"

"Do you want to get married today?" Meg repeated. "Before we die, I mean. It seems like something you'd want to do."

"We _can't_ get married. There's no one to officiate."

"Well, it wouldn't be _legal,"_ Meg admitted. "If we do survive, we'd have to have a legal wedding, anyway. But if we do die, I thought you'd like to do it married."

"Of course I do," he said quietly. "Sure. Let's get married."

She nodded. "Alright. Stand up and let's do this thing. You know the words?"

He did. He'd spent weeks practicing them, to ensure he wouldn't be stumbling his way through their marriage ceremony. "I know them. I hope I'll remember them."

"I'll go first, since they're basically the same. Stand up, Clarence. You can't get married sitting down."

He obeyed her. Removing his cloak, he laid it on the ground and dusted off his clothing. Meg stood away from him, his sword resting on the table. He placed his dagger next to it and then held out his hands to draw her onto the cloak. His palms were sweaty, and he noticed that hers were as well, although her face betrayed no signs of nervousness or excitement.

She took a deep breath. "I, Princess Megan Masters, first daughter of King Azazel and Queen Abaddon Masters, heir to the throne of Ennom, offer myself to you in marriage, so that we may join together as one heart, body, and mind, until death do us part."

He squeezed her fingers and swallowed hard. "I, Prince Castiel Novak, sixth son of King Chuck and Queen Naomi Novak, brother to King Gabriel Novak, and child of Araboth, offer myself to you in marriage, so that we may join together as one heart, body, and mind, until death do us part."

Meg smiled and took her hands from his. Reaching for his sword, she held it delicately, and offered it to him. "I have no piece of me to share with you, and no food for your table, but I offer you this blade, and with it the protection of my body, until the end of my days."

Castiel took the sword, kissed it, and then set it aside to take up his dagger. Keeping his hands tucked together, palms up, he offered it to Meg. "I accept your gift, and I accept you as my wife. I also have no piece of myself to share, nor food for your table, but I offer you this blade, and with it the protection of my body, until the end of my days."

Meg took the dagger and kissed it, but kept it in her hands. "I accept you as my husband." Instead of taking his hand and kissing him as custom dictated, she turned her left hand so her palm was facing upward and slowly drew the dagger across it, making a shallow cut. Squeezing her hand into a fist, she held it over the wooden cup for a few moments. When she was finished, she held the dagger back to him.

Taking it, he copied her motions, setting the dagger next to the cup when he was through. The cut on his palm throbbed, and he hoped Meg had some way to bandage them.

But a blood vow was the most important part of the ceremony.

Meg took the small cup and held it to his lips. "I offer you my soul, so that we may be joined in this life and the next."

He opened his mouth and drank. The cup was small, and only held two mouthfuls of their mixed blood, so he was careful not to take too much. He tried not to gag at the taste, and held his breath so he would not smell it.

When he'd taken his share, he took the cup from Meg's fingers and held it to her lips. "I offer you my soul, so that we may be joined in this life and the next."

Meg opened her mouth and swallowed their mixed blood down without hesitating. When he pulled the cup away, her teeth were stained pink. She smiled at him. "You may now kiss the bride." He did. There was blood on her lips, and he knew that there was blood on his. He felt her tongue run across his lips to take it and shivered. She was still smiling when he pulled away.

"Wife," he greeted.

"Castiel Masters," she said. "Welcome to the family."

He laughed and kissed her again. She smiled against his lips, and twined their fingers together. He felt her injured palm slide against his own, mixing their blood together further. Meg drew away from him, and placed her hand over their joined ones. He put his hand on top of hers, so all four of their hands were touching.

"And what is joined together, no man may tear apart," he finished.

"See? We didn't need a priest or king after all." She bared her teeth at him in a smile. His injured palm felt sticky against hers.

"What now?" he asked her.

Meg wiggled her eyebrows. "Well, we are married now."

He thought of the spider-creature and shuddered. "No. Not just now, I think."

"Well," Meg said, taking her hands from his, "we best start planning, then."

.

She healed their hands first, binding the cuts with plants from inside of their hideout and speaking over them. When she pulled the plants away, he was amazed that there was only a faint, pink line on his palm, while Meg's skin betrayed no evidence that there had ever been a knife on it. When he asked her why, she only smiled and told him that it was easier to heal your own flesh than it was to heal another person's.

She made him eat again as she combed through the clearing, looking for anything useful. He sat watching her as he ate their last apple and rubbed his thumb over the pink line on his palm. It was strange to think of himself and Meg as married when there had been no fanfare, no family and friends around them, and no celebration afterward. Their wedding feast consisted of an apple and some dried meat, and their wedding night of planning murder.

He'd been imagining his wedding day for eight years, and nothing had turned out as expected.

"You're awfully quiet," Meg commented.

"We just got married. I'm absorbing it," he said. "Find anything?"

"Not a thing. Looks like the only weapons we have are the sword and dagger. The sword is good, but the dagger is pretty much useless."

"You have some magic. That fire thing was useful."

"I don't know if I could do it again. It takes a lot of energy. Plus, I don't think it'd kill Crowley. Ruby taught me some tricks, but I'm not very skilled at it. The sword might work, though. It's meant to break through spells."

"So, all we have to do is get close enough for one of us to run him through with it?"

Meg nodded. "Yes. I don't think he knows that it's magic."

"He definitely knows that it broke through the spells around Skulltree, though. The skull I spoke to there said that the woods and Crowley are one, which means he definitely felt it when I use the sword on the barrier."

"Magic swords are everywhere in fiction, but very rare in real life. It took me a long time to get it forged. You have to have something made of dragon or unicorn in it, in order to make it work, because there has to be some magic in it already. Then you have to find a coven with a smith in it, and they have to be willing to bless it while they make it, along with others in the coven. The whole coven has to agree to do it, and they charge an outrageous fee for it, too. They weave spells into the steel, layers of them, around and on top of each other," Meg explained. "Most witches who are trained at the sword channel their magic through the steel when they fight, which makes it look like magic swords are more common than they really are."

"You said Samhain had a magic sword," Castiel pointed out.

"Yes, and it's been in his family for over five hundred years," Meg told him. "As far as we know, there are only five truly magical swords in existence. Yours makes number five. There might be a few hidden away somewhere in the world, in families that don't know what they are or at the bottom of ponds or stuck in stones, or something. Covens are still rare, even in Ennom, and witches are outlawed in a lot of countries still. Including yours. Crowley won't think you have a magic sword. He'll think that you're a witch, and that you're using your sword to channel your magic. Or that I did."

"Won't he try to take it, then?"

Meg shook her head. "No. There are only two reasons you send magic through an object in battle. One is to hit harder than you normally could, and the other is to reach something without getting close to it. Either way, Crowley will assume you're weaker than you really are, if you're sending magic through your steel. If he's powerful enough to manipulate the forest paths and transport you somewhere else in the woods without a scratch on you, then he's a very, very powerful witch. Not to mention that he's had over two hundred years to hone his Craft."

Castiel took Meg's word for it. It was true that witches were still outlawed in most places, and hunted down and burned if caught, driving the few of them left into hiding. Ennom was one of the few countries that allowed open practice of witchcraft, and Meg had grown up around it, so he trusted her knowledge of the practice. "I don't understand why he needs blood, though. How would blood heal him?"

"Blood is the conduit to the soul," Meg said. Her voice was low and quiet, as if betraying a secret. "In the old days, there were people who would drink the blood of the people they killed, because they believed that they could steal a person's soul that way. All of the most powerful spells require some of your own blood, because you have to let your soul flow into the earth."

"So, he's not just taking people's blood, but he's stealing their souls?"

Meg nodded. "Ruby explained it to me, but I didn't understand all of it. Souls are energy, sort of. It's like a-a-" She waved her hands around, groping for the right world. "-a water wheel."

"A water wheel? Like at a mill?"

Meg nodded again. "Yeah. Your blood is soaked with energy from your soul. When your body rots, you let that energy into the ground, and it flows everywhere, and it powers everyone's magic, and the growth of trees and flowers and crops. Same thing happens when you burn, except the energy releases into the air. The blood vow isn't just pretty words, you know. It's literally two people mixing their souls together, to become one soul."

Castiel opened his hand and traced the pink mark on his palm. "One soul."

"Joined in this life and the next, forever. Blood is powerful, Castiel. Never forget that."

"Now I won't."

"Good. Now, we should see how far his castle is from here. The best thing to do would be to sneak in there and take him by surprise."

"How do you plan on finding his castle?"

"We climb a tree," Meg said. "We'll see if that works."

"I thought you said that you tried to fly out of the trees already and you couldn't?"

"You never know until you try. Besides, we can't exactly escape by climbing a tree, and it's a better plan than wandering around the forest and hoping to run into him."

"Won't the location of the castle move?"

"Well, unless we run into shadow dogs are walking corpses, or something else, I say we stick with our original plan and just walk in the general direction of it until we get to it, and use the sword to carve our way through the trees if they block us. Unless you have a better plan?"

"I don't."

"Okay then. Climb a tree it is."

Meg helped him shoulder his pack, slipping the cup they'd used for their blood vow deep inside of it. It made him smile, to see that she wanted to save some small piece of their unconventional marriage ceremony.

Their hideaway vanished behind them once they stepped into the forest, just as the last one had. It was twilight outside, and the leaves on the trees were just beginning to glow, turning Meg's pale skin a sickly greenish color. He watched as she turned in a circle to find a tree with low branches, and followed her when she began to haul herself up.

His injured foot made him slow, which forced Meg to slow her own climb to keep them from being separated. The tree itself seemed to go on forever, more and more branches appearing the higher they went. The branches themselves never seemed to thin, each one as wide around as two of his arms pressed together and longer than his body. The sun refused to sink lower in the sky, hovering at twilight.

Finally, although the branches refused to thin and the leaves were thicker than ever, they broke through the canopy.

The forest stretched around them like a glowing green ocean with no end in sight. The trees seemed to fill every inch of space, right to the setting sun that hovered at the horizon, casting an orange glow over the green. No matter which way he turned, Castiel could not see any villages, or the great towers of Meg's castle, or even open fields or roads. There was only the green ocean.

"What do you think would happen right now, if you turned into a bird?" Castiel asked.

"The trees would probably grow higher," Meg answered. Wind blew from somewhere, sending her hair whipping around her face and stinging his eyes. "Do you smell it?"

"Smell what?" he asked, inhaling.

"Exactly. It should smell like trees. But it doesn't up here. This could be another trick."

"Do you think so?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But look." Meg turned to her left and pointed. Castiel followed her finger and swallowed hard.

"Smoke," he said, watching as a thin, gray cloud curled toward the hazy sky. "Someone else is here."

"Must be Crowley's lair," Meg said. As soon as the sentence left her mouth, he heard a strange rumbling noise, and felt a strange sensation, as if the tree was shrinking under him. It was gone in a moment, but when it was, the whole forest was shorter, and two thick, gray towers of stone rose from the greenery where the smoke was coming from.

"I think it is. Shall we rest before we head out?"

Meg shook her head. "I slept while you were sleeping. I only woke up a few minutes before you did. Besides, I don't want to spend another night in this stupid place."

"I don't want to do that, either," Castiel admitted.

"Then let's climb down and start walking."

They did. The climb to the ground seemed shorter than the climb up had, although the forest floor looked unchanged, when Castiel looked up, the trees seemed just as high as they had before. Meg didn't look with him. Instead, she took his hand and led him away. The path was wide enough for the two of them to walk size by side, though the trees brushed his shoulders as they walked. Castiel kept an eye out for unusual shadows, and gradually relaxed when the forest remained silent.

Meg stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. "If we live through this, we may have to postpone the wedding, depending on how long we've actually been gone. Dad might've named Tom his official heir and found him a little wife."

"I doubt that. The second thing, anyway."

"Why? Tom's good looking, and he'd be next in line for the throne."

"Well, for one, I left your brother at my house," Castiel said. "My sister seemed _very_ taken with him, and she's not yet eighteen."

Meg laughed. "Well then. At least we won't have to worry about that. I wonder if Ruby had her baby yet?"

"I don't think so. She wasn't very far along, if I recall."

"We don't know how long we've been here, though. The forest plays tricks. I thought I'd been here for months, remember?"

"My best guess is that we've been here for only a few days," Castiel said. "At any rate, your father will certainly have to adjust the menu for the wedding. All the food will have spoiled by now."

Meg snorted. "And the flowers. And the musicians. Poor dad. He'll have to plan the whole thing over again."

Castiel smiled at her. "We might not get married for another year!"

"It only took him a few months to plan it. He'll just have to adjust the flowers and color schemes and menu for the spring instead of the fall. If he can wait that long. He might just rush it."

Castiel sighed and shook his head. When Azazel had suggested an autumn wedding, Castiel had been filled with visions of a lazy winter with Meg. He'd envisioned the two of them snowed in together, spending days tucked up in bed, warmed only by the fire and each other. "When this is over, we should go away together. To the sea, maybe. For our honeymoon. Someplace warm."

"That'd be nice. Some time to relax in the sun." He made a small noise of agreement and squeezed her hand. She squeezed it back. "Look, the sun is rising again."

It was. The leaves were dimming and pools of sunlight were streaming through the branches, chasing away the shadows. "Do you think that's a good sign?"

Meg shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But you never-" She froze as a rustling sound came from the bushes. "Shit."

Castiel's heart began to pound. "It could be an animal."

"Have you seen or heard any animals here?" Meg snapped. "There's no tracks, no scat, no sign of animals _at all."_

"Shadow dogs?"

She swallowed hard. "I hope not."

The rustling grew louder. Castiel drew his sword and pulled Meg closer to him. "If it is shadow dogs, you transform and fly up into the trees. I'll catch your protection amulet."

"If it is the shadow dogs we may as well throw ourselves at them. There's no way you can flee a second time, not with your foot."

But it wasn't the shadow dogs.

The bushes parted, and Castiel swallowed a scream as a headless body shambled toward them. The bright pink stump gleamed in the sunlight like a burn, and the body's limbs jerked as if they were being controlled by strings. He glanced behind him and saw two more headless bodies emerged from the foliage, followed by the now-familiar growls of the shadow dogs. One of the bodies held a skull in its hands at the level of its belly.

Castiel tried to pull Meg behind him, but she stepped forward. "Crowley."

The skull laughed. Two shadow dogs slunk out of the greenery to stand beside the corpses. Their red eyes glowed from the shadows, and the black drool that fell from their jaws dissolved before it hit the ground. Castiel shivered at the sight of their bared teeth and felt his injured foot throb. But Meg only turned to him and smiled.

"Our cover's blown, Clarence. Sheathe your sword."

"No. We can fight our way out of this," he growled. "Meg, get behind me. Transform or climb a tree. But run."

Meg's voice dropped to a whisper. "We've lost the element of surprise, but that doesn't mean we're beaten. Sheathe your sword, husband. We can still kick this son of a bitch's ass." Her vulgarity didn't surprise him, but he knew that she was serious when she spoke like that. He sheathed his sword. Meg nodded. "Good boy. Now, follow me."

Meg took another step forward and raised her hands, palms up. He did the same. The skull laughed again, and the shadow dogs pressed themselves to the ground. One of them cocked its head to the side, curious.

"Alright, Crowley. You win," Meg said. "We surrender."

"Meg, no! What if they kill us?"

Meg's voice stayed calm and even. "They won't. Crowley wants our blood, and here we are, offering ourselves right up to him." She raised her voice. "You hear me, Crowley? I said that we surrender."

One of the shadow dogs slunk up to them and tried to nudge Meg's leg with its head. The creature's snout passed through her dress harmlessly, but Castiel saw Meg shiver at the sensation. "We'll go, okay? You don't have to touch me."

The shadow dog whined and tried to nudge her again, but Meg stepped backward. The headless bodies took a step forward, urging them to move. When they turned around together the third headless body began to walk down the path. Meg followed without hesitating or even looking back to make sure that Castiel was walking with her. One of the shadow dogs stayed by her side, occasionally running a little ways ahead before turning around and waiting for her to catch up. The other one slunk to his side and stayed silent, its leathery-looking ears standing on end.

Castiel jogged to catch up with Meg and to keep ahead of the two bodies shambling behind them. "What are we going to do?"

"Keep to the original plan," Meg whispered. "Just because we've lost our element of surprise doesn't mean we can't kill the smarmy dick. It just means that we've got an escort and we're guaranteed to find his lair."

The shadow dog next to him snapped at his heels so he would move faster. Castiel glared down at it and grabbed his sword. "I can kill you."

Meg put her hand on his arm. "Calm down. Look, we're almost there."

He looked. The trees were thinning, giving way to an open stretch of forest that was dominated by a long, squat building with two tall towers on either side. It would have been generous to call it a castle, but Castiel supposed that, just like the forest, it could change at will, and that it only appeared small to someone standing outside of it.

He took a deep breath. "Into Hell we go."

Meg nodded and took his hand as the shadow dogs drove them forward. "Hi-ho, hi-ho, into Hell we go."


	6. Crawl Out of Your Grave

Castiel had been expecting Crowley's castle to look like something out of a horror novel. He'd expected to see blood on the walls, human bones used as decorations, and rats to be scurrying around the corridors. But it looked like an ordinary place to Castiel. The walls were bare, gray stone, and completely unadorned save for the torches that were there for light. The floor was covered by a worn, red rug with gold trim that was coated with dust. Every step he, Meg, and the corpses took sent dust fluttering into the air. The shadow dogs glided silently beside them, their paws neither sending up dust nor leaving paw prints behind.

"Were you expecting skulls or viscera or just plain old dead bodies?" Meg asked him.

"Well, yes. But you've been here before."

"Not to this part of the castle," she told him. "If I'm remembering right, then you won't be disappointed later on. Course, we might be dead by the time we get to the gross stuff, so I guess you'll still wind up disappointed."

Castiel shuddered. "The corpse hole."

She nodded. "If we die, then that's the way we're leaving. You might get to see some pretty torture tools, though."

"Lucky me."

"Well, I did escape from him, so he'll probably torture me first," Meg said cheerfully. "Or he'll torture you and make me watch. Either way, I don't imagine it being pretty. That's if we don't kill him. If we do manage to kill him…"

"We return home to a joyful wedding ceremony and listen to your father nag us about giving him grandchildren?"

"Ruby's got that covered."

"Meg, I know your father. He'll just use Ruby's baby to nag us more. He'll go on about how close the three of you were as children because you were all close in age, and how good it is for kids to have friends, and how he was raised around all his cousins."

The conversation proved to be a good distraction, and Meg seemed to sense it, laughing as though they were taking a stroll through the castle gardens back home. "Well, I don't care what dad says. Unless I wind up pregnant from our little liaison in the forest, we're not having kids for another five years."

"We do need an heir," Castiel pointed out.

Meg snorted. "Five. Years."

The memory of the spider child crept into his mind. Shuddering, Castiel nodded. "Alright. Five years."

She smiled at him. The corpse walking in front of them stopped in front of a set of large, scarred wooden doors, forcing them to stop as well. The wood had been brown once, but had faded over time to a light sandy color, and sported deep scratches.

The corpse stiffly raised its arm and, unable to make a fist, limply hit the door. Castiel felt his mouth go dry and swallowed hard. "I love you."

Meg rolled her eyes. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?"

"Like this is the last time you'll ever say it. The next time you say that, we better be at home."

He opened his mouth to reply, but the door swung open before he could. The two corpses behind them came forward and gave them both rough shoves to force them through the door. The shadow dogs bounded forward, yipping happily as they rushed toward the man standing near the window. His back facing them, and the room was dimly lit, so Castiel could only make out the man's black tunic and trousers. The room was made of stone just like the others, and the walls were covered with garish tapestries depicting various means of torture.

The corpses went back behind the door, and two men emerged from the shadows. They were dressed in old, poor clothing that was torn and rotten in places, and their heads sat awkwardly on their necks and lolled from side to side with their movements. Their eyes, when Castiel saw them, were bloodshot and bulging out of their sockets. Their swollen purple tongues poked out from between blue lips, and their fingertips were black from the blood pooling in them.

"Hanged men," Meg whispered as they slowly closed the doors. Castiel pressed closer to her, suddenly afraid. But Meg stood tall and proud, waiting for the man by the window to turn around.

Castiel had to stifle a scream when he did.

Parts of the man looked normal. He was shorter than Castiel had expected, with dark, thinning hair and clothes that had once been good quality but had thinned out with age. One of his eyes was a strange, glowing red, just like the shadow dog's eyes. But most of his face and neck was a patchwork of dead, blackened skin and shiny pink burns that openly wept thick, yellow pus. The skin had completely rotted away around one side of his jaw, exposing his teeth, and one of his eye sockets was completely empty. He raised a blackened hand at them in greeting, and Castiel watched as a chunk of skin slid away with a strange sucking sound to reveal the stark, white bone underneath. The flesh dissolved before it hit the carpeted floor, turning into a puff of foul-smelling black smoke.

"Crowley," Meg greeted.

The man smiled, stretching out the open skin on the burned side of his mouth, sending pus dribbling through the hole and onto his teeth. He flicked his gaze toward Castiel and tutted. "Meg, Meg, Meg, what would your daddy say if he saw you running around with a little loverboy? Why, you look like the perfect picture of a whore."

Meg bared her teeth at Crowley. "You look like a dragon chewed you up and spit you out, but here I was trying to be polite and not mention it."

Crowley's smile dropped. "You still have quite a tongue on you. But we'll fix that soon enough."

Castiel drew Meg behind him. "Don't touch her."

Crowley laughed. "Loverboy speaks! That one seems quite devoted to you, Meg. Cast a little spell on him?"

"You and I both know I don't have enough power to do that," Meg said, stepping out from behind Castiel's arm.

"You seemed to have enough power when you burnt up my dogs."

"As far as I know it was a one time deal. But enough talk. Are we gonna make with the torture now?"

Crowley let out a dry rasping noise, and Castiel reached out to grab Meg's arm to pull her behind him again. More hanged men slipped out from behind the garish tapestries before he could, their bulging, bloodshot eyes rolling toward the couple as they slowly shuffled toward them, black hands twitching.

Bile rose in Castiel's throat, but Meg stood perfectly still, even as the hanged men came up behind them and wrenched their hands behind their backs. They were extraordinarily strong despite being corpses, and no matter how hard Castiel struggled he could not dislodge them. Their hands were cold as ice, and dug painfully into his wrists. He was sure that, if he was alive come morning, there would be bruises there.

"Now the fun begins," Crowley drawled. He walked toward a tapestry that showed two women dangling from hooks while small, devilish imps poked at them with spikes. He shoved it aside to reveal a tall, wooden door and gestured for the hanged men to follow as he slipped through it. The door was so narrow that they had to walk in a single line to go through it, and Castiel lost sight of Meg as the hanged men pushed him in front of her.

He kicked wildly as he was forced through the passageway and threw himself from side to side, trying to dislodge the dead man. But the fingers around his wrist were tighter than a vice, and he could not escape, no matter how furiously he struggled. He heard Meg sigh loudly behind him. "Knock it off, Clarence. We got this."

"Your attitude is admirable, my dear, but you're entirely wrong," Crowley said over his shoulder.

Meg didn't answer. The hanged men shoved the two of them through the door into another large, stone room. This one had bare walls, and the windows were covered by thick, velvet curtains that had once been a bright, brilliant red, but over time had faded to the rusty color of old blood. Bronze chandeliers swung from the ceiling on rusted chains. The room itself held several tables, each one of them covered by a white cloth spotted with blood and fluids. The center of the room held a large, bronze tub engraved with runes, and next to it was a shiny, still contraption that was shaped like a circle and attached to several chains. Old bloodstains coated the stone around the tub.

Crowley turned around with his arms stretched outward. "Welcome."

Castiel saw Meg looking at the tub. If she was afraid she showed no sign of it, keeping her voice calm and rolling her eyes. "You really need to clean in here."

"Someone took my maid and flew off. Which reminds me…" Crowley strode up to them and reached into Meg's gown with his burned hand. She wrinkled her nose and spat at him, sending a glob of phlegm splattering across his cheek. Crowley withdrew his hand, pulled it back, and struck her across the face. Castiel roared and leapt forward.

"Meg!" he shouted. "Don't touch her!"

Meg spat again, only this time there was blood in it. Grease was smeared across her cheek from Crowley's burnt hand, and bits of blackened flesh as well.

"I could string up loverboy first, you know," Crowley commented. Meg bared her teeth at him. Blood dripped down her chin.

"It won't work."

"He is only a peasant, true. But his blood will be good enough to heal my face."

Crowley glided away from Meg and over to one of his tables to draw the sheet off. Castiel felt his blood run cold as Crowley revealed the array of knives neatly spread on the wood. He fingered each one in turn, good hand trailing across the blades, before he picked up a small, pinched knife that was barely longer than Castiel's little finger.

Crowley glided back to Castiel and smiled. "Let's see how you taste, eh?"

"Fuck you," Castiel spat. He had never used vulgar language in his life, preferring to speak properly, and the word sounded awkward coming from his mouth. Crowley must have sensed it, because he laughed and raised the knife.

"What a mouth. Perhaps I'll have to cut both your tongues out. I could have them with my supper."

The cut Crowley made on Castiel's cheek was shallow, but it burned and bled all the same. Castiel hissed when he felt the metal on his cheek, and he tasted his own blood when it dripped down into his mouth. Crowley only smiled and ran his fat, pink tongue along the cut, making Castiel shiver. The other man's breath was hot and sour against his face, and he smelled like burned, rotten meat.

Crowley pulled away and licked his lips. "What's this? A prince dressed like a peasant? This day just keeps getting better and better."

"You can't use him for your spell," Meg said.

Crowley reached out and grabbed Castiel's face to hold him still. "I most certainly can. He's pure."

"I'm not," Castiel said quickly.

"He's not," Meg agreed. "The spell said you needed a virgin of noble blood. He's not a virgin."

Crowley removed his hands from Castiel's face and strode over to the large, circular contraption in the middle of the room. "A common mistranslation, I'm afraid. Some idiot witch that lived centuries ago took it to mean that purity meant virginity. The spell requires a pure soul, untainted by murder, and your boy here fits the bill just perfectly."

Castiel felt his knees go weak, and saw Meg's eyes widen in fear. She swallowed hard. "No! Don't touch him! Don't you fucking touch him!"

Crowley shook his head. "Such a mouth. I prefer them quiet." Meg struggled against the hanged man holding her, feet kicking wildly as she twisted in his grasp. Crowley only shook his head and strode back over to her. "I think I preferred it when you were a bird."

Meg threw herself forward and sank her teeth into Crowley's burned hand when he raised it near her mouth. Crowley shrieked like a teakettle and pulled it away. A long strip of flesh followed, exposing the fragile bones of his fingers to the air. Slick, red blood and thick, yellow pus poured from the wound. The torn flesh dangled from Meg's mouth for a moment before she dropped it on the ground and spat on it. Blood and grease lined her lips and dripped down onto her pale chest. The strip of skin sizzled for a moment before it curled in on itself, dissolving until it was nothing more than an oily, black smear on the floor.

Crowley growled and slapped her again, shoving his hand into her bodice while she recovered from the blow. He hissed as he pulled the protection amulet out of her dress and yanked it over her head with his good hand. Crowley dropped it as soon as it was free of Meg's neck, and Castiel could see the star and flames burned into his open palm. Castiel yelped as Crowley brought the heel of his shoe down on the amulet, shattering it.

Meg jerked once and gasped, her legs folding under her. The hanged man let her go and stood motionless behind her as Meg struggled to breathe. Her dress seemed to tighten on her, and there was a small flash of light that obscured her body. When it faded she had changed back into a crow.

Wings out, she dove for the crushed protection amulet, but Crowley was faster. He casually whacked her to the side, sending Meg's small form tumbling across the floor, wings flapping wildly as she tried to regain her balance. The hanged man shuffled to her side and gently scooped her up, thumbs pressed over her wings to prevent her from flying. Meg pecked wildly at his hands, ripping at them with her beak and sending chunks of blackened flesh fluttering to the floor. But the hanged man didn't feel it. He calmly walked her to the other side of the room and waited for Crowley to pull the sheet off of a small birdcage before he gently placed Meg inside. She screamed and cawed, throwing herself against the bars. Crowley turned to Castiel and smiled.

"Now, how about we have our fun?"

Crowley snapped his fingers. The other hanged man came to Castiel's side so each one could grab his arms. Crowley stroked his skeletal hand with a small smile on his face as the hanged men dragged Castiel to the circular contraption in the middle of the room. The headless corpses came through the door, their limbs moving jerkily as they stumbled toward him.

"Strip him," Crowley ordered.

Growling, Castiel kicked wildly at the headless corpses, but every time they fell they simply rose again and shuffled back toward him. They eventually got their hands on his tunic, ripping it down the front to expose his chest to the open air. The hanged men temporarily relinquished their hold on his arms to yank the tattered remains of his tunic and his cloak off of him until he was exposed. Their arms went around his neck when he struggled, keeping him in a stranglehold until he was scrabbling at their flesh and struggling to breathe, all thought of fighting forgotten.

Crowley nodded. "Chain him."

The hanged men dragged him toward the circular contraption in the middle of the room and held him against it while the headless corpses chained his wrists and ankles to it. Spread against it, he was unable to move when they wound another chain around his waist and a second one around his neck to keep him pinned. The metal was cold against his bare back, and sticky with old blood and fluids.

Gasping for air, he tried to twist his head, but it only made the chain dig into the soft skin of his throat. He yanked on the chains, but wound up trying to shrink back when Crowley approached and delicately picked up his protection amulet by its chain, avoiding the pendant.

"My, my. You two have found a very powerful witch. But it won't save you now." Crowley dropped the amulet back onto Castiel's chest. "Shall I cut your tongue out first? The stump bleeds an awful lot, you know. But we can't have you dying before the spell's completed. I could take a finger, or a toe. Those stumps bleed, but you'll still be useful for a while, after."

Crowley walked over to his table of knives and selected one, walking back to hold it against Castiel's face. Small and curved, the metal was cold against the skin of his cheek.

"Or we could take some skin off and work from there," Crowley continued. "I could start with your pretty face. Of course, most victims die before you reach their waist, but I could keep you alive with magic. Keep the shock at bay, or staunch the blood loss until you're nothing more than a walking corpse like my boys here. I could even keep you, after, and make you work for me."

"Do what you want," Castiel said. "I'm not afraid of you."

"That, my boy, is a very big mistake," Crowley said softly. He reached out with his good hand and ran his fingers through Castiel's hair, fingering the ends. "Such pretty hair. You and Meg made quite a picture. Shall I flay her after as well? Keep the two of you together after you die, as a pretty pair of corpses?"

"She's not afraid of you, either," Castiel growled.

"Neither of you have to be. I'll kill you all the same. And once I'm free of this place, I'll kill her father, too. I'll kill the entire royal family, and the plan Lilith and I put into place two hundred years ago will finally come to fruition."

"Lilith is dead, and there are more witches in Ennom now than there ever were. You won't get far once you get out of here."

"But none of those witches have had over two hundred years to hone their Craft, have they?"

"Lilith is still dead."

Crowley smiled slyly. The tip of his tongue poked out of the hole in the side of his face. "She is. She fled from me and created those little pockets of safety in the forest, but it is easy enough to bring her back. I do have her relative right here, after all. And this. I do have this."

Crowley walked over to another table near the room's only window and pulled the sheet off to reveal the body of a young woman. Her skin was pale as milk, her hair was as golden as the sun, and her pink lips were stretched into a peaceful expression. Her hands lay folded over her stomach. Crowley had dressed the body all in white and carved symbols into the wood around her. Her chest rose and fell slightly, almost as if she was breathing.

"I found her and brought her here, and kept her all these years," Crowley said. He walked over to the table and gently stroked the woman's face with his good hand, brushing back her hair. His face softened, and Castiel swore he could almost see affection fill Crowley's good eye. "Not dead, not quite, but merely sleeping. Preserved, waiting for the day when I could break free and we could rule together. Your blood will free me, and Meg's blood will awaken her from her slumber."

Castiel swallowed hard. "She won't have you. She'll run again."

"She'll see reason," Crowley argued. "One way or another, I'll make her see reason." Crowley turned away from the body and walked back over to Castiel, grabbing a different knife as he did. The blade gleamed in the torchlight. "But the time for talk is over. First, I'll cut you. Shallowly in some places, and deeper in others, and you'll begin to bleed. Then I'll drain you into the tub. Once I've covered myself in your blood and drink it, I'll be free. If you're a good boy, I'll kill you outright. If you're not, I'll keep you alive so you can watch as I slit your whore's throat and bathe Lilith in her blood."

"Why not just slit my throat and be done with it?"

"Ritual, of course. The spell requires specific patterns." Reaching down, Crowley fingered Castiel's sword belt. Castiel thought he felt the metal itself shivering at the witch's touch, but the sword did not hum or pulse with life, staying quiet. "You can't use any magic with your hands bound, and I don't sense that much in you to begin with, not enough to harm me, anyway. I'll let you die with this, as a gift to you. I'll let you die as a man."

Castiel smiled. Meg had quieted in the background, and he couldn't turn his head to see her, but he felt strangely calm. Crowley took his smile for one of surrender and grinned back at him and raised the knife, not bothering to look at the cage where he'd stashed Meg, or even at Lilith's body, or at anything but Castiel's chest.

He began muttering to himself in another language as he made the first cut, digging the knife deep into the skin above Castiel's right nipple. Castiel gritted his teeth and focused on the wall behind Crowley's head, sucking in a breath when the man curved the cut.

He smiled wider when he saw Meg, still a crow, flutter onto one of the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. She tilted her head down at the two of them and opened and closed her beak without sound. Castiel tried to nod, but was hampered by the collar. His sword began to hum softly.

"Keep still," Crowley muttered.

Meg spread her wings.

"Did you know that crows are some of the most intelligent birds in the animal kingdom?" Castiel asked. "They've been known to hold grudges, recognize humans, and even work locks."

Crowley's eyes widened. He looked over Castiel's shoulder at Meg's cage and cursed, turning around as Meg screamed and launched herself down from the chandelier. Crowley swiped his knife at her, missed, and screamed and Meg's claws sunk into his one good eye. The chandelier swayed the flames on the candles dancing back and forth as Crowley screamed and tried to bat Meg off of his face. She screeched and tore at his bad eye socket as well, sending blood streaming down his face.

Crowley fell to the floor, his hands pressed over his face to staunch the blood. Meg fluttered onto Castiel's shoulder and picked at his protection amulet, using her beak to swing it up over his head and onto her hers, tumbling sideways toward the floor once it was free. A bright light surrounded her again, and once it faded she was on her knees before him, his protection amulet swinging from her neck.

Her face and chest were smeared with blood and grease, and there were bruises forming on her face from where Crowley had slapped her. Her hair was in disarray around her head, and she was still in the feathered gown.

"Thank you," Castiel panted. Meg stood on shaking legs and rushed for his chains, tugging at them to free him. She managed to get his arms free as Crowley writhed on the ground. He stopped shrieking and stood, hand pressed over what had been his good eye. The other empty socket seemed to glow with a deep, red light.

"Bitch," Crowley growled. "You want to die first?"

Meg groped for Castiel's sword and pulled it free, turning to face Crowley. She held the sword awkwardly, as if unsure how to use it. Castiel knew that she'd gotten far more training in the art of torture with her uncle than she ever had with a sword. "Clarence, get out of that thing so you can help me."

"You don't have enough magic of your own to hurt me, even with your little toy," Crowley taunted. "I don't even have to do anything to you. My men can take care of everything."

Meg snarled. "Think again."

The hanged men shambled forward. Despite her shaky hold on the sword, she swung it with all her strength, sending it through the hanged men's bowels so they tumbled to the floor. Their organs spilled onto the stones, bright pink and bloodless, leaving gaping holes in their bodies before they collapsed onto the floor and did not get up again. She swung at the headless corpses next, splitting them in half. The steel swept through the bones and meat and gristle as easily as a knife sliding through butter, sending the bodies tumbling on top of the hanged men. Their insides spilled out, black and rotten, but they did not bleed or twitch. The sword seemed to shine with its own internal light, and Castiel could clearly see the metal pulsing like a beating heart.

Crowley's empty eye socket stretched open in surprise. "It's not possible."

Meg spat on the bodies while Castiel unchained himself and awkwardly stumbled from the circular contraption. Blood still wept from the wound on his chest, soaking the hair that fell over it. His arms were stiff from being tied, and his throat felt as if someone had taken sandpaper to it, but he smiled all the same. "It is."

"It's true that neither of us have much magic," Meg said. "But this thing has enough magic in it to kill even you."

Crowley snarled and removed his hand from his face. The red light in his eye sockets grew brighter. "We'll see."

Meg drew her dagger and handed the sword back to Castiel. "You're better with this thing than I am. I can't kill him with the dagger, but I can hurt him enough to get him down so you can shove that thing through his skull."

Castiel nodded and held the sword out in front of him. Crowley only smiled and held his hand out. "Big mistake, kids. She may have a protection amulet, but you don't."

Meg glanced between the two of them. Fire appeared in Crowley's open palm and hovered there for a moment before it blazed forward. Meg shoved Castiel hard, sending him toppling to the floor as she leapt the other way. The smell of singed feathers filled the room, and Castiel heard Meg scream as she batted at the flames that had caught her dress.

Crowley laughed. The knives on the uncovered table flew into the air behind them, their blades shining in the firelight. Castiel stood and prepared to run toward Meg when the knives shot forward. He screamed a warning, but Meg calmly held up her hand and shouted something in a language that Castiel didn't know and the knives stopped, sinking into the air in front of her as if they were hitting an invisible barrier. They stayed there, vibrating, as Meg turned and launched herself at Crowley.

She aimed too high and wound up tackling him around the chest instead of the waist, sending the two of the tumbling to the floor. Castiel circled them as they screeched and rolled, Meg plunging her dagger into Crowley over and over. The witch cursed and grabbed a fistful of Meg's hair, yanking out several strands as he tried to dislodge her. Meg shook herself free, raised herself onto her knees so she was straddling him, and raised the dagger again.

The glowing lights in Crowley's empty eye sockets dimmed then flashed brighter. Castiel screamed as Crowley grabbed Meg's wrist before she could sink the dagger into his flesh, turned it, and plunged the dagger into her stomach. Meg jerked and looked down in horror as Crowley smiled and slowly withdrew the blade almost all the way before he shoved it back into her belly and gave it a twist. She made a strange gurgling noise and clutched at the dagger, pressing on the wound around it. Blood leaked out from between her fingers. The knives stuck in the air behind Castiel clattered to the floor.

Crowley shoved Meg off of him and stood, yanking the dagger out of her stomach before she hit the floor. She curled her arms around her stomach and groaned, trying to struggle to her feet but falling back onto the ground. Crowley gave her a kick and turned to face Castiel, the fingers of his good hand curled around the hilt of Meg's dagger.

"You've been very bad, loverboy," Crowley said. "Now you get to watch her die."

Castiel screeched and leapt at Crowley. The witch sent another jet of flame streaming from his palm, aiming it at Castiel's head. Castiel barely managed to doge it, weaving out of the fire's path. The jet still caught the ends of his hair, singing away the strands as he raised his sword and brought it down, severing the witch's hand from its wrist. Dark red blood poured from the stump. The skeletal hand that landed on the floor twitched and tried to right itself, the fingers flailing in an attempt to stand and scuttle back to its master. Castiel crushed it under his heel, grinding the bones against the stones as he brought his sword down again and severed Crowley's good hand. It joined its brother in trying to crawl back to its body, fingers splayed out like a demented spider, until Castiel forced the point of his sword through the palm of Crowley's severed hand, pinning it to the ground.

The witch cursed and began chanting under his breath. Without hesitation, Castiel shoved his fingers into the other man's mouth and grabbed hold of his fat, pink tongue and yanked. It came away easily, flesh parting from flesh with a wet sucking noise. The stump wiggled pink and damp through the hole in the side of Crowley's face.

"I'm sick of hearing you talk," Castiel growled. He hooked his fingers into the hole in the side of Crowley's face and pulled, slowly stripping off a large chunk of skin, exposing the witch's jaw and cheekbone to the air. "You're not so tough, not without your magic. You're nothing but a rotting old corpse. Your shadow dogs are more frightening than you are."

Crowley gurgled deep in his throat. The stump of his tongue twitched as he tried to talk.

Castiel shook his head. "Can't summon them without your voice, can you? You really aren't that scary, you know. Meg and I just should've saved ourselves some time and did this in the first place. It's too bad I can't take my time with you like Meg would've liked."

Castiel stepped back and raised his sword. It hummed in anticipation, the black metal giving off a warm, white glow. Smoke rose from the blood on the blade, curling in thin lines toward the ceiling. Crowley turned and tried to flee, showing his back. His tunic was soaked with blood, making the fabric stick to his skin in odd places. Castiel raised his sword and aimed for a spot at Crowley's spine where Meg had already stabbed. His steel slid into the witch's back as if it were moving through water, easily cutting through skin and bones and gristle, severing Crowley's spine. The witch toppled down onto the stone, his body completely immobile. Castiel walked next to him, sword raised, and said a quick prayer before bringing his blade down into Crowley's neck to separate his head and body. The sword gave a final, triumphant hum, followed by a small sucking sound. Castiel watched in fascination as Crowley's blood ran upward and sunk into the metal, making the blade seem even darker than before.

Castiel removed his sword. The corpse jerked once, went still, and then began to bubble, Crowley's burned skin bursting open and leaking foul-smelling pus onto the stones before it began to dissolve in rancid black smoke. Castiel watched with a mix of horror and fascination until Crowley's body was nothing more than a smear of oily-looking black liquid on the floor.

Meg groaned. Castiel sheathed his sword and rushed to her side, falling onto his knees next to her. He gently shifted her onto her back, slipping one hand under her to cradle her head. She ignored him and continued muttering, her hands moving over her belly.

"Meg, it's done," he said softly. "We'll get you out of here and to the castle healer or Ruby. You'll be fine."

"Shut. Up," she ground out, teeth pressed tightly together.

He blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Shut up," she repeated. She moved her hands and stretched them up toward his face. Castiel caught her hand in one of his and pressed it to his cheek. She already felt cold.

"It's okay," he soothed. "It's okay. I'm here."

Meg jerked her hand out of his grasp and fisted it in his hair to pull him closer to her. Her other hand swiped through the still weeping cut on his chest, fingers pressed deep into it to keep it bleeding. He yelped and instinctively tried to pull away, but her hold on his hair only tightened.

Once her fingers were coated, Meg released him and slapped both her palms against the wound in her stomach. She began speaking in Latin, fingers dancing over the cut. She said a final word and a strange, blue light began to shine, spreading outward from the wound and then slowly withdraw back into it. Once it faded, the cut looked shallower, and barely bled.

He tentatively reached out and stroked the wound. Meg hissed and batted his hand away. "Don't."

"How did you do that?" he breathed.

"Blood heals, remember?" she said, giving him a faint smile. "Help me up."

He slid his arm under her and helped her into a sitting position. She fell against him, her back hitting his chest, and sighed. He prepared to stand when the castle shook around them and a deep rumbling sound rose up from below. Meg's fingers dug into his wrist in alarm as the stones from the celling began to rain down on them, vanishing into dust moments before they collided with his head. The floor began to break apart, melting into thick, gray liquid and sinking into the ground.

"The castle's going!" Castiel shouted. "Meg, we have to move!"

Meg shook her head and reached into the neck of her gown to clutch her protection amulet. "Stay close."

Squeezing his eyes shut, Castiel wrapped his arms around Meg's middle and bowed his head over hers to shield her as the rumbling grew louder. He could hear more stones falling, could hear the walls collapsing and the chandeliers hitting the floor. High, fearful screams sounded from every direction. He felt his backside hit something hard as the floor dropped out from underneath them, and then heard nothing as the rumbling and screaming stopped as one.

Castiel slowly opened his eyes and found that the castle was gone. Instead, they were in the middle of a clearing in the forest. Sunlight streamed down on them, warming his bared flesh. It was still oddly silent, but Castiel no longer felt as if a strange weight was pressing down on him, and he breathed clearly for the first time since he had entered Hangman's Wood to rescue Meg.

"It's done," he told her, lifting his head. "The castle's gone as well."

"She's not, though," Meg said quietly, jerking her head to the side. Castiel turned and saw Lilith on the other side of the clearing. The table she had been resting on had survived the destruction of the castle, but she had not fared well. Her body was coated in dust, and her breathing seemed shallower.

"She's dying," Castiel observed. "Whatever spells Crowley had in place to keep her preserved and comatose are fading."

"How long do you think she has?"

"Not long."

Meg looked at Lilith for a moment longer and then gave his hair a tug. "I can't walk yet. Pick me up and bring me over there."

He was confused, but did as he was told, gingerly slipping his hands under her knees and around her back. Meg wound her hands around his neck and leaned close to him, the feathered skirt of her gown rustling as he walked. Once they reached Lilith, Meg looked between her sleeping form and her own hands, a frown of concentration on her face. The blood on her hands was nearly dry, but still wet enough that Castiel could see it smearing across her skin when she rubbed her fingers together.

"Put me down," Meg ordered. "On the table."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Put me down."

He obeyed her. Meg sat up shakily and pressed her fingers to the oozing wound on her stomach, collecting her own blood, and then reached over and began smearing it on Lilith's skin. She moved her fingers across any exposed skin she could find, covering the woman's arms and chest and face in red. Once she was finished, Meg gently pried Lilith's mouth open and reached her fingers inside to press her them against the woman's tongue.

Meg closed Lilith's mouth and pressed her fingers against her eyelids. "Live."

Lilith gasped and her eyes flew open. Her eyes were as blue as his own, but they were wide with fear and darted around the clearing, finally resting on Meg's. Her blood-smeared hand lifted from the table to rest on Meg's cheek. Meg twined their fingers together and held it there, a smile on her face.


	7. Out of the Woods

Castiel wasn't sure how long the three of them sat in the clearing. Meg insisted on resting, fingering the wound in her stomach. Lilith didn't leave them, but wandered around the clearing in circles, examining herself. When Castiel commented on the blood and dust covering her, she simply walked to the edge of the clearing, touched the ground, and jumped back as a thin stream appeared.

"The woods are still enchanted. They'll be that way for a while," she explained when Castiel asked her how she did it. Not caring about his presence, she stripped and walked into the water to wash herself. Meg followed her on shaky legs, wading into the water fully dressed. Lilith held her as she did, and helped wash the grime of the forest from Meg's hair. "Fergus' spell on you will fade soon, too. You'll be a normal girl again."

They moved after the women had washed. Lilith used magic to dry them, simply touching her hands to the top of Meg's head to rid her of the water. She smiled at Castiel when he gaped at her.

"It's almost noon," Meg said. "We should go."

He'd lost his cloak during the struggle with Crowley, but had recovered the battered remains of his tunic. The wound on his chest had mostly healed, but both Meg and Lilith had told him that it would most likely scar. They had been unable to repair his tunic as well, forcing him to walk around with his chest exposed and the tattered fabric hanging from his arms. But the day was warm and clear, and the sun moved in the sky like it was a perfectly normal day. Castiel had no doubt that, in time, life would return to the woods.

"It won't," Lilith said, as if she'd read his thoughts. "There are still ghosts here. Trapped. Fergus still has a hold on this place. We better be out before dark."

"Do you know the way out?" Castiel asked.

Lilith shook her head. "No. But I think you do."

Confused, Castiel looked at the trees. The ones lining the path bore small, parallel lines.

Meg laughed. "Shit, Clarence, looks like your idea worked after all."

He walked up to the tree and touched one of the marks. "We're almost out. I wonder if Benny is still waiting for us."

Meg snorted. "I guess we're walking home if he isn't."

"She can't build a broom and fly us?" Castiel joked, pointing at Lilith.

Lilith's eyebrows wrinkled. "That's a myth."

"He's joking," Meg told her.

"Humor was not like that when I was the future queen," Lilith said.

"Well, a lot's changed in two hundred years," Meg said. Lilith stopped walking and stared at Meg with wide eyes.

"Two _hundred_ years?" Lilith shook her head. "Two hundred years. Everything's changed. What do they say about me back home? Is it even still called Ennom?"

Meg stroked Lilith's arm. "Yes, we're still called Ennom. They say…they say that you and Crowley and your coven were robbing the people, and that you brought him back, and that you loved him."

"I did. Love him, I mean. Fergus was a farmer. It started with little spells to help his crops grow, and it grew. My father wouldn't let me marry him, and I didn't want him for a paramour. I wanted him as my husband. So we decided that we would get some money, and that we would run away together. It went wrong."

"But you brought him back?" Castiel prodded.

"Yes," Lilith admitted. "I brought him back to life. I loved him. But what they don't tell you about necromancy is that they never come back right. He was still burned and rotten, but I loved him, anyway. But he wanted revenge on my father, and everyone who hurt him. The want festered until he became something dangerous and I couldn't stay."

"You really did create all those safe pockets, then?" Castiel asked.

Lilith nodded. "When we were young, Fergus used to talk about us going away together and building our own grand castle, far enough away that no one would ever find us." She sighed, and turned to look back down the path. "I guess he did it."

Meg shrugged. "Kind of a shitty castle."

Lilith didn't laugh. "The coven is going to punish me. Assuming there's still a coven and witches weren't outlawed after everything that happened."

"Witches aren't outlawed," Castiel informed her.

Lilith shrugged. "Well, that's that."

Meg gave her shoulder a playful nudge. "Whatever it is, it can't be worse than this place."

"Oh, it could," Lilith told them. "You have no idea what someone with magic can really do."

"You have to take it," Meg said. "My dad always said that when you do wrong, you gotta take your licks."

"You and Tom had a whipping boy," Castiel pointed out.

" _Someone's_ gotta take your licks," Meg corrected. "Happy now?"

Castiel rolled his eyes. "I'm just saying that I think I gave Crowley more than enough 'licks' to qualify."

Lilith shook her head. "Covens operate by different rules. It doesn't matter if you're of royal blood or not."

"Not to mention that, from where I'm standing, there was no way you had time to give Crowley enough of a beating to make up for the shit he did to us. If it were up to me, I would've told you to let me heal myself and then we could've strapped him to the table and really shown him what pain was. If I could've talked, anyway."

Lilith winced. Meg looked away and pretended not to notice. Whatever the other girl now thought about Crowley, she'd loved him once, and maybe still did. Castiel knew that she did not want to hear about Meg's desire to torture the man.

"I'm sure there will be a way to work something out," he reassured Lilith. "After all, your situation is entirely unique."

"And the man you brought back to life is dead again, anyway," Meg pointed out. "No proof."

Lilith smiled. "That is very true."

The path narrowed as they walked, forcing the three of them to move in a single file line, but it was a natural curve and not the strange, sudden change that Castiel had grown accustomed to during his time in Hangman's Wood. Meg seemed to sense the change, too, because she reached around Lilith and squeezed his hand.

"Does any of this look familiar?" she asked.

Castiel nodded. "There aren't any more slash marks on the trees up ahead, so this must be the right path."

"We haven't gone past Skulltree."

"Would it even still have the skulls?"

Meg shrugged. "Who knows? Lilith, do you know the original layout of this place?"

Lilith shook her head. "It's been a long time since I was allowed to walk freely in the forest."

"Since the forest is mostly normal now, do you guys still think I'd turn into a bird if I took the protection amulet off?"

"You probably would," Lilith said. "Some spells fade faster than others, and transformation magic is very powerful. I could take it off of you, with the proper materials. Or you could let it fade naturally. It would only take a few months."

Meg sighed. "Damnit. We'll have to have you or Ruby take it off before the wedding."

Castiel stopped and held his arm out to halt the women. "I think this is it."

Meg squinted down the path. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Look, I can see light, and the trees are thinning."

Lilith squared her shoulders and stood up straighter. "Let's get this over with."

Castiel took a deep breath, walked the short distance to the edge of the woods, and stepped into the sunlight. Blinking at the sudden brightness, he reached out his hand to grope for Meg's, closing his fingers around hers when he felt her slide up next to him. She held her other hand over her eyes like a visor and squinted. Castiel groped blindly and smiled when his fingers brushed over one of the charred wooden posts that marked the entrance to Hangman's Wood.

"It doesn't look any different," Lilith said.

"Not much has changed in two hundred years," Meg admitted. "Well, they've expanded the castle. There've been some advances in metal work and stuff, and water is piped directly into the castle now through pumps. Ruby worked out a spell to instantly heat water, too, so instant hot baths."

Lilith's eyes glowed. "A hot bath sounds wonderful."

"Let's get to the village first. I still need the physician," Meg said.

"I'll carry you," Castiel offered. "You've done enough walking."

Meg shook her head. "I am _not_ going home in the arms of some guy like I'm a damsel in distress. Besides, your foot?"

"Technically, you were a damsel in distress. And my foot feels fine. Mostly. I could probably carry you most of the way."

Meg rolled her eyes. "Go to Hell. Let's go."

Lilith grabbed Meg's hand to stop her. "We've gotta do one thing first."

Meg raised her eyebrows, but turned to face the forest when Lilith did. Lilith held her palm up and gently spoke until a small flame appeared, hovering just above her skin. Meg imitated her. The fire that she made was smaller, and flickered as though it was in danger of going out. Castiel stood behind them, reluctant to approach and interrupt whatever ceremony they were about to perform.

Lilith gently blew on the flame, sending it forward into the forest. Meg did the same. Small tongues of fire darted between the trees, each one settling on a different branch and spreading over it. The burning wood gave off a strange, rotten odor, like old corpses burning, and Castiel wondered how many bodies were hidden in the forest, slowly decaying under the trees.

Lilith dropped her hand. "May the fire cleanse you, so you may find peace in the next life."

"May the fire lead you to the next life, so you may find paradise," Meg continued. Castiel swallowed hard. The people on Ennom burned their dead, and the prayer was an old one, passed down through the ages.

"May everything you are pass into everything that is," Lilith continued.

Meg took the next line. "May the one become part of the whole, and may your body nourish the land, and all who live in it."

The forest burned in front of them, the smoking flowing higher and higher into the sky as more and more trees caught. Shrill screams lit the air, thousands of them flowing together until they were one voice.

"May your sins be forgiven as you are cleansed, and may you find peace until you return to this life and start anew," they finished together.

Meg turned to face him. "Let's go home, Clarence."

He put his arm around her and drew her away from the flames. "Yes. Let's go home."

.

Night had fallen by the time they stumbled into the village. Despite Meg's repeated insistence that she didn't need to be carried, she was limping heavily and leaning on his shoulder by the time they reached it. Lilith was weak as well, stumbling down the path on shaking legs, unused to walking after spending so long in an enchanted slumber. Castiel was unsure how much time had passed since he had entered Hangman's Wood, and part of him expected Benny to have left.

But then he saw a thin plume of smoke rising from one of the huts.

"It's been less than a week," Castiel said, stunned. "Benny's still here."

Meg snorted. "Of course he's still here. He knows that I'd kick his ass if he left me. Benny! You better be cooking food in there!"

Castiel heard muffled cursing and the sound of boots slapping against stone. Benny emerged from one of the huts, his sword held out in front of him as his eyes darted around the abandoned village. His eyes widened when he looked at Meg, and he dropped his sword in surprise.

"Princess," he rasped, taking of his hat and holding it over his heart. "Castiel. Um…new girl."

"Benny, this is Princess Lilith Masters," Castiel said.

Benny swallowed hard. "She's dead."

"We'll explain later," Meg interrupted. "Do you have any food?"

Benny shook himself. "Yeah, inside. I caught a rabbit this morning, and found some eggs. There've been birds building nests in the other abandoned houses."

Meg nodded. "We'll eat, and then we'll head home. We'll fill you in on the way. C'mon, auntie." She grabbed Lilith and pulled her into the hut, leaving Castiel and Benny to talk.

"How long?" Castiel asked.

"Nine days," Benny told him.

"That's longer than a week."

"I would've waited two more days, and come back every few days after that, just to make sure." Benny shook his head and slapped Castiel on the shoulder. "You did it."

Castiel sighed heavily. "I can't believe she wants to ride all night to reach the castle. I'm ready to fall over and sleep for a week."

"You can do that once we reach home," Benny said. "But the way I see it, you've also got quite the tale to tell, and you'll have to come up with some way to explain Lilith."

"I'm sure Ruby and the coven will figure out something."

"They are good at figuring stuff out. C'mon. Let's go see if those women left us anything to eat. Maybe I can persuade Meg to rest here tonight. She doesn't look like she's in any shape to sit a horse."

Castiel laughed and followed Benny into the small hut.

.

It took Benny less than five minutes to convince Meg to spend the night in the village. All it took was one long, patient look, and Benny asking what her poor father would do if he saw her all beaten up, to get Meg to agree that sleep would be best. The wound had scabbed over, but she still limped, and Castiel knew that, no matter what magic she had used on it, Azazel would still insist on tucking her into bed for at least a week to heal, and that the castle physician would probably agree.

They slept on opposite side of the fire that night, Lilith and Meg curled together like kittens while he and Benny lay a respectable distance from each other. Meg may have been his wife, but it was still a secret, and while her country was more forward thinking when it came to premarital relations, Castiel knew that he could not sleep with her in the same bed until the wedding.

Still, the only thing he wanted was to take her in his arms and hold her through the night. He was restless without Meg beside him, and woke several times in the middle of the night to check that she was still there, that they had really escaped the forest and Crowley and that it wasn't all a dream.

She was shaky the next morning, and still very pale, but seemed more energetic, eagerly running to Boots and Button as fast as she could. Her dip in Lilith's magical river had removed most of the blood from her skin, but he could still see dark patches on her gown where it had soaked deep into the material. All four of them were covered in dust and sweat, and he noticed that Lilith began trembling when Meg led her to the horses.

"You'll ride with Benny," Meg said. Neither she or Benny gave Lilith time to protest. The older man simply mounted the horse, leaned down, and scooped Lilith up to settle her in front of him. Meg tried to mount Boots, failed, and glared at the horse until Castiel came over and grabbed her around the waist to boost her up before settling behind her.

He put his mouth to her ear. "There's no shame in asking for help in your condition."

She turned her glare on him. "Just ride."

Lilith leaned back against Benny as they rode, eyes darting around to take in everything she saw. Meg herself stared straight ahead, shaking with excitement. The only sound was the noise of the horse's hooves hitting the dirt road until Benny cleared his throat.

"So," he said, "let's hear it."

Meg began, telling Benny about how the rest of their hunting party had been captured, and her time in Crowley's castle, and running with Jo. Castiel took over after that, and told Benny about his journey through the woods, finding Meg, and the horrible hallucinations he had suffered from eating the food inside of Hangman's Wood.

Meg filled in the gaps of his story, hiding nothing from Benny. The other man only nodded when Meg told him about she and Castiel having sex in one of the little magic hideaways, and nodded again when she told him about their quick, secret marriage ceremony.

"Well, I'd have done the same thing, under the circumstances," Benny told them. "Not knowing if you're getting outta there or not. Your father might be a little pissed, though."

Meg waved her hand. "Dad'll be glad that I'm alive. Besides, we don't _have_ to tell him that Castiel and I are already married."

Benny shook his head and asked them to tell him about defeating Crowley. Meg grew quiet then, so Castiel recounted the final battle. His sword hummed as he talked, and Castiel got the feeling that it was pleased.

Benny whistled when the tale was finished. "That'll be a good one for the history books. The bards, too, of course. You guys will have singers making songs about this for ages."

"Watch them use Castiel's name and only refer to me as 'the princess' or some other bullshit," Meg muttered.

"You can't help what idiots do," Benny told her. "But this Jo girl. I'm assuming you'll want your father to find her family?"

Meg nodded. "She only had her mother. Ellen Harvelle runs a tavern in Bakersbridge. Shouldn't be too hard to find her."

"Then what?"

"Her daughter saved my life, and she died in there. I owe it to Jo to make sure her mother lives in comfort for the rest of her goddamned life."

Benny nodded. "I'll tell your father to put some feelers out once we get home."

By then they had reached civilization, and several people were pointing and talking as they went by. Meg laughed as a young boy crossed himself. "I think dad already knows that we're coming."

It was late afternoon by the time they reached the gates to Meg's home, and sure enough Azazel was standing there. Ruby was next to him, her hand wrapped around her father's. Tom stood on Ruby's other side, his arm around her shoulders, looking half angry and half hopeful. The family's eyes widened in shock when they laid eyes on the four of them, and Ruby's face broke out in a grin.

Meg took the reins from Castiel, jerked the horse to a stop, and slid to the ground. She walked awkwardly, and could not fully run, but took off toward her family all the same, throwing herself into her father's arms. Castiel slid off his horse more slowly and hung back, watching as Azazel gripped Meg tight, his eyes squeezed shut. Ruby and Tom moved in, too, the four of them huddling tightly together.

Finally, Meg wiggled out of the hug. "Hi, daddy."

Azazel reached out and stroked her hair. "Hey, kiddo." He looked over Meg's shoulder at Castiel and beckoned him forward.

"Sir," Castiel greeted. Azazel smiled and pulled Castiel into a quick hug.

"You did it, son. But I'm going to have to ask you to explain the blonde up there with my other future son-in-law that looks suspiciously like a painting that's locked away in one of our towers."

"She _is_ the girl in the painting," Castiel said without preamble. "Crowley was holding her captive in the woods all those years. That's Lilith."

Azazel whistled. "Shit."

Castiel nodded. "Yeah."

Azazel looked at Benny and Lilith again and nodded. "Well, can't do anything about it now. Let's get you all inside. You look like you could use a bath and fresh clothes, and I noticed Meg was limping."

"We got a little beat up," Castiel told him.

Azazel's yellow eyes bore into Castiel's blue ones, like he knew that Castiel was sugar-coating what was wrong with Meg. "I expect to hear the full story as soon as you've washed up."

Castiel nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Then let's go inside. Your family's waiting for you."

.

It was two days before he was allowed to see Meg again. As she'd predicted, Azazel had tucked her up in bed under the care of the castle physician. Castiel was placed in his old room, just down the hall from Meg's, but there were so many people coming to see both of them that he didn't get the chance to speak to her. His nightmares of the woods kept him awake most nights. He would close his eyes and see the monster child coming toward him, or see Crowley sinking his knife into Meg's stomach, or spring awake with the feeling of water deep in his lungs. Azazel told him that the nightmares would fade with time.

Then there was the question of what to do with Lilith.

Ruby had contacted the head of her coven, a woman named Casey, to come and assess the situation with Lilith. As far as Castiel knew, she wouldn't be facing much punishment. According to Ruby, being held captive for hundreds of years was enough of a punishment. Mostly. But since he wasn't in Ruby's coven, she couldn't tell him everything.

His sisters coddled him, his brother joked with him, Tom tried to reassure him that everything would be fine, and Azazel threw himself back into readying the castle for the wedding.

When he woke up in the middle of the night on the third day, the face of the spider child fresh in his mind, he decided to go see her. Slipping into a robe and stuffing his feet into a pair of slippers, Castiel cautiously slid into the hallway and tip-toed down to Meg's childhood room, wincing at every little sound.

She was awake when he entered her room. Although the castle physician, a tall, skinny man named Garth, had put her on bedrest, she was standing by her window, wrapped up in her blanket.

"You should be in bed," he told her.

"Jo's mother came to see me today," Meg said, refusing to turn away from the window. "Her daughter is dead because I left her behind."

"There wasn't anything you could do."

Meg shook her head. "There's no point in going over it now. It happened."

"What are you going to do with her? Ellen?"

"Whatever she wants me to do. She's still in shock, I think. Dad took her away and gave her a room to rest in for however long she wants. I think he _likes_ her."

Castiel ventured further into the room and sat down on the bed. "Really?"

Meg finally turned away from the window. She stayed where she was, leaning against the glass. "You should've seen the way he was looking at her, and a king offering to escort a commoner somewhere? Dad thinks she's pretty. It's good, though. He hasn't had anyone since my mother. Did you know that your sister has been spending a lot of time with my brother?"

"Which one?"'

"Hael. The family and some servants took shifts watching him so he wouldn't come after us. Apparently they got pretty close."

Castiel made a mental note to watch his sister more closely until it was time to go back home. While Hael was not yet old enough to get married in Ennom, she was old enough to get married in Araboth, and he knew that Meg's family wasn't above laying a pregnancy trap to get what they wanted when it came to their spouses. "Do you know what's going to happen to Lilith?" he asked, not wanting to think about his sister cozying up to his brother-in-law. "Ruby wouldn't tell me much."

"She'll have to take some punishment, of course, for the initial crime," Meg said. "But they're sending her away with the coven leader to take some time to heal and readjust to life. She'll need some time, since things are so different now. After that, father was thinking of bringing her here, and setting her up in the dungeons with Alistair. It depends on what she wants to do, and how long it takes her to adjust to this century. Or if she even _can_ adjust to this century."

"Come sit down," Castiel said gently. "Garth said you weren't supposed to be out of bed."

She snorted. "I'm fine. Garth said I could get up and do some light walking if I wanted, and I'll be free to get up and walk around by the end of the week. He's just being cautious."

"Come sit down," he repeated. "Come to bed."

Meg rolled her eyes, but padded toward the bed and climbed in, anyway. She shed the thin blanket around her shoulders and pillowed it under her head. "You come to bed, too."

"It's not proper," he argued.

"We're married," she reminded him.

"Benny is the only one who knows that."

Meg snorted. "I told dad, and Benny definitely told Ruby, and dad definitely told Tom. He told us to just keep it quiet until the wedding next week. Besides, after everything we went through, I don't think that anyone will care if we sleep together in the same bed."

Castiel swallowed hard, but took off his robe and lay down next to her. Meg scooted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder. Her nightgown was new and perfectly white, with ribbons on the front to keep it tied together. Their hair mixed on the pillow. The bruises on her face had mostly faded to a light yellow color, thanks to a mixture of Ruby's magic and Garth's ointments, and he expected that they would be gone before the wedding. Still, he noticed that she winced when she shifted on the bed, and knew that she had other injuries he could not see, although neither Garth nor Ruby had told him the extent of the damage to Meg's body.

"Are you really okay?" he asked her.

"Nothing vital was pierced, and I did a pretty good job of closing it up myself," Meg told him. "Ruby says that it has to finish healing on its own, though. No more magic on it. She also said that there'll probably be a scar."

He took a deep breath. "And if there was a baby?"

"No baby," Meg said. "Not that time."

"You're absolutely sure?" he pressed.

Meg reached out and patted his cheek. "My cycle started about an hour after we got home."

Castiel breathed a sigh of relief. Part of him was disappointed, but another part of him was relieved that he and Meg would have time to enjoy their marriage for a while before they had a child. Concerned, he reached out and brushed the hair out of her face. "But there's more than just the wound. Have you been having nightmares?"

"No. Why, have you?"

"Every night."

Meg's face softened. "That's shit. Sleep here tonight. Maybe that'll help."

"I really shouldn't. I really should go back to my own room."

She smiled. "Clarence, even if we wanted to, neither of us are in any shape to do anything but sleep tonight. Too much stress and my stomach tears right open. The only thing holding my insides together right now is magic and bandages. Everybody knows it."

He reached for the blanket at the end of the bed and pulled it over both of them. Meg snuggled up to his side and their body heat filled the small space, warming it. Her hair smelt like flowers, and her nightgown was soft under his fingers when he ran his hands down her arm. "Are you sure no one will be angry?"

"Who cares if they are?" she murmured. "We're heroes now, remember? We could parade naked through the streets and no one would say anything. We killed the witch, after all. Go to sleep. It'll be better in the morning. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

She smiled playfully at him. "Since the wedding is over a week late, and winter is about to set in, that means lots of things have to be re-arranged for the wedding. A whole different color scheme. New flowers. New outfits. Dad's throwing the whole thing together. We might even have a frost."

"It hasn't been long enough for snow."

"Castiel, we have witches on our side. The decorators can fake up some stuff, and the coven can fill in the rest, so the gardens would look like a winter wonderland without actually feeling like one."

"Your father couldn't give us some more time, knowing that we got married already?"

"Our families are the only ones that know we're married already. The kingdom and other royalty expect an event, and I think you're forgetting that this is kind of a huge thing. I am the heir to the throne, after all, and you're the future king. It's in everyone's best interest to marry us as soon as possible. Legally. With witnesses. But don't worry about it. Dad'll sort everything out. He has an eye for these things."

Castiel sighed. "At least we can look forward to a few weeks alone. We've connections in a few other countries, and winter hasn't set in yet in a lot of places. Some time by the beach, some sun and sand, and some time to relax. Alone. No meddling families or creepy witches. Just us."

Meg reached over and patted his cheek again. "That's the spirit, Clarence."


	8. To Take Another Journey

The night he spent with Meg had provided a dreamless sleep, but unlike she had predicted, their families were a little angry in the morning. Azazel had simply shrugged when Gabriel complained, saying that the two of them were too injured to do anything untoward, and had been through something incredibly traumatic, so there was nothing wrong with the two of them taking comfort in each other's presence. Gabriel disagreed, saying that inspiring gossip would only hurt, and gave Castiel the worst scolding he'd had since he was a child.

Azazel tried to keep him busy, and proved very good at distracting Castiel during the day, having him visit with the wedding guests who had traveled from far and wide, repeating his tale to singers and storytellers, and helping with the wedding preparations. It left him exhausted most nights, and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. When exhaustion didn't chase away his nightmares, he went to Ruby. The young witch provided sleeping draughts that chased away his dreams, but they left him in a fog during the day, making it impossible to accomplish simple tasks. His foot healed slowly. Ruby and Garth examined it every day, Ruby working her magic over it while Garth studied her. The young man wasn't a full-fledged witch, but he had been dabbling in healing magic. Ruby, having no desire to become the official castle healer, simply watched him and coached him through simple spells.

Castiel barely saw Meg, even when Garth let her off bedrest and she was allowed to freely wander the castle. Tradition dictated that the bride and groom be separated for at least three days before the wedding. Meg's people truly believed that absence made the heart grow fonder. Three days was the minimum, although longer was considered better. Once again he found himself cursing Ennom and their ways.

Azazel locked Meg up in a new room on the other side of the castle and put her in charge of the final decorations. It would be the room that they were deposited when their friends bedded them on their wedding night. After their wedding feast, their friends and family would carry them to the bedchamber and deposit them together on the bed, wishing them well as they left. It was a tradition in both Ennom and Araboth, and one that Castiel wasn't looking forward to. Their families took their meals separately on the nights before the wedding, but Azazel stopped by before the servants came to snuff the candles out to give Castiel a brief update on the condition of his bride.

He waved away the sleeping draught the night before the wedding, wanting to have a clear head for the ceremony. He tucked himself in bed that night expecting horrific nightmares, but to his surprise, none came. He dreamt of Meg that night, but instead of seeing her naked body being mutilated by the spider child, he saw her standing by the sea in nothing but her nightgown, her hair pinned up and a smile on her face. The sea crashed around her, the waves rolling up onto the beach, and Meg held her hands out for him, inviting him to swim.

He woke that morning with a smile on his face. The dawn had come, and with it the servants knocking on his door, saying it was time to bathe and ready himself.

He did as he was told, letting the servants scrub his back and wash hair and dress him. His wedding outfit was far finer than the one Azazel had given him for his journey, and finer than any clothing he had ever owned. The tunic was made of soft, black material that flowed easily through his hands, and was embroidered richly around the collar and down the arms in gold thread. The symbols on his tunic were old, an ancient language that hadn't been in use since before Lilith was the crown princess. He recognized only one of the symbols, but was sure that Meg would be able to tell him what the rest of them meant. The matching black leggings molded to his body, the trousers were also deep black, and the leather boots that reached his knees were brand new and impeccably clean. The buff colored cloak that completed his wedding outfit was plain but lined with fur to ensure that he would be warm, even though the day was bitterly cold. He would lose the warmth when he removed his cloak to lay it at Meg's feet, but he appreciated the thought all the same.

The servants brushed his hair and went to braid it, but Castiel waved them away. Meg had always liked his hair down. He'd had to cut it a little shorter when Crowley had singed it, so it barely fell to the top of his shoulders. Instead of putting it up or braiding it, the servants brushed it until it shone and applied a few drops of rose scented water to his scalp before combing it through the rest of his hair.

Azazel and Gabriel met him at the door. Their clothes were finely made, but both of them were dressed more plainly than Castiel. Custom dictated that the bride and groom were the only ones dressed elaborately on their wedding day. Gabriel was dressed in blue and Azazel in soft bronze, but neither of their tunics had the same level of detail in their embroidery that Castiel's did. Both of them had forgone wearing their crowns, or any sort of jewelry. Castiel himself wore no gems or gold, but he knew that Meg would be outfitted in the finest that Azazel could find.

His father-in-law's yellow eyes sparkled when he saw Castiel in his wedding finery, and Gabriel graced him with a soft smile. "I wanted to check on you before I went to collect Meg," Azazel said. "I know that you know what to do, but remember to act like this is your first wedding, not your second. Be just as attentive and sincere as you were in the woods. Just follow Meg's lead."

Castiel nodded. "Yes, sir."

Azazel nodded back. "That's what I like to hear. Now get downstairs. You've people to greet. I'm off to find my daughter."

Gabriel escorted him, and together descended to the ground floor of the castle. In Ennom, the bride and groom walked together to the altar side by side, instead of the groom waiting for the bride at the end of the aisle, so he would be forced to wait alone, greeting guests as they filtered through to their seats, until the last one was seated and Meg met him at the door to the gardens. Even her father would not make the journey with them. Fathers did not give away their daughters in Meg's country.

Gabriel gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder and winked before departing to his seat. The other guests began to filter through the hall, each one stopping to congratulate him on his wedding or successful escape from the woods. He shook hands with more people than he could count, dodged well-meaning advice for his wedding night, and shot stern looks at the people that told him lewd jokes about the bedding.

Ruby and Benny shuffled past, both of them dressed in dark red. Ruby's dress was cut tightly to expose the small bump on her stomach, and Castiel noticed Benny beaming with happiness when others congratulated the couple on the child. Anna went past him alone, Charlie unable to escort her because of her status, and refused the arms of several men. Her forest-green gown was conservative, the collar high and the sleeves long, but she held her head up and walked with her back straight.

He stiffened when he saw Hael approach, her arm looped through Tom's. Hael had dressed herself in a soft yellow, and her gown was a little too tight and the neckline a little too low for Castiel's liking, and she was pressed too close to Tom for it to be entirely appropriate. Tom's tunic was a soft purple, so it looked like he had dressed to compliment Hael. Despite that fact that both families were supposed to be separate before the wedding, Castiel got the feeling that his little sister had been sneaking off to see the prince, and that they had planned to dress, and act, as though they were a couple.

Castiel gave her a long, stern look. Hael stuck her tongue out at him. Tom laughed leaned down to whisper something in her ear that made her laugh, too.

"Don't worry," Tom told him as Hael walked through the doors. "Nothing untoward will happen. We just grew close when she took care of me in Araboth. That's all."

Castiel gave Tom a stern look and sent him on his way. Meg's uncle, Alistair, was next in line. Castiel shivered when he looked at him. Alistair was a tall man, and had scared Castiel since he was a child, even before he knew that that man's job was to oversee the dungeon and torture the prisoners that no one else could break. Azazel had believed that a good queen had to be strong enough to withstand the sight of bloodshed, and had apprenticed his eldest to Alistair when Meg had turned thirteen. The man had been fiercely protective of his niece, and Castiel got the feeling that, should she become unhappy, not even his marital or blood status would save him from the man's knives.

Alistair was dressed head-to-toe in gray. Castiel had never seen him wear any other color. His balding head shone in the torchlight, and his strange, pale eyes never revealed a hint of what he was feeling. His grip on Castiel's hand was a little too tight to be called friendly, but not tight enough to be truly threatening.

"You will make her happy," Alistair said in his strange, crooning voice. It wasn't a question, but it wasn't quite an order, either.

Castiel swallowed hard. "I already have."

"It's a shame that Lilith couldn't come. I hear she's quite beautiful, and quite skilled in Craft as well."

"She needs to heal. She was injured in the woods," Castiel lied. Meg and Azazel had decided that it would be better for Lilith to live away from the castle, at least for a little while, to adjust to the new world. Casey had taken her deep into the mountains, where there were small villages full of people who didn't ask questions. Ruby had called it a place of healing, and Castiel believed her. The last he'd heard, Lilith had been punished for her sin of necromancy, and was healing from the lashes. He didn't know if Ruby meant emotional or physical wounds, and he didn't want to. In any case, she would never tell him. It was coven business, and not for him to know.

Alistair narrowed his eyes, but said nothing else and left to take his seat.

When the last guest had filtered through the doors, Castiel breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. It was quiet for a moment, with the servants gone and the guests chattering outside. He stood up straight again when he heard footsteps and turned toward the stairs, waiting for Meg to descend.

Azazel walked proudly down the steps, his arm looped through Meg's. Castiel felt his mouth open and struggled to close it when he saw Meg's lips twitch. Her gown was a light blush color instead of the traditional white, and was gathered just under her breasts, letting the rest of the skirt flow softly down to her ankles. Sleeves made of delicate lace added a more conservative feel to it despite the gown's open, heart-shaped neckline.

Her veil covered only her hair and flowed down her back, leaving her entire face uncovered. When he looked closer, he could see small snowflakes embroidered all along it. Her hair had been kept down to match his, but some enterprising servant had lightly curled it and brushed it away from her face, pinning back only a small section. The rest of it flowed down her back and over her shoulders in a dark curtain that ended just below her breasts. Unlike other brides, who usually outfitted themselves with gold and gems, she wore no jewelry, save for a delicate silver ring that had once belonged to her mother. Castiel wondered how long she and her father had argued about that.

Azazel led Meg down the stairs and walked her over to Castiel. His grip on her arm was tight, and even though it was time for him to let her go and step away, the king seemed rooted to the spot, staring right through Castiel as if he wasn't there. Meg went to step away, but Azazel's grip grew tighter.

"Dad, you have to let go now," Meg said softly, tugging at her father's arm. "For God's sake, I'm not going anywhere. We're going to live here, remember? Let go. I have to go with him now."

Azazel shook himself. "You're so young, to be married."

"Well, you planned the whole thing. Besides, you and Mom were younger than I am."

Azazel slipped his arm from Meg's and kissed her cheek. "I know. That doesn't make it easier."

Castiel held his arm out for Meg. Azazel nodded and stepped through the doors. "Come out when the music starts," he instructed just before he closed them.

"You look beautiful," Castiel told her. Meg smiled at him.

"You look good, too. I'm glad the seamstresses got the sizing right. So old-fashioned, though."

"I don't know what half of these mean."

Meg reached out and gently traced a finger down his arm, naming the symbols as she went. "Love. Devotion. Fertility. Everlasting. Love, again. Bound. One soul." The wedding music began to play before he could talk again. Meg faced the doors and gripped his arm tight. "Here we go. Smile big, Clarence."

He stood up straight and smiled as two servants pulled the door open, but found it hard to keep his smile when he gazed outside. Just as promised, the gardens had been transformed into a winter wonderland. A plush, red carpet stretched from the door to the table at the end of the aisle. Icicles hung from every tree, and the ground was liberally powdered with snow. Soft pink flowers lined the carpet and decorated the stark white table at the head of the aisle. The chairs for the guests were all off-white, and there were snowflake-shaped garlands strung between each row of seats. The witches had done something to the place to make it warmer. Despite the cold that had settled on the land, the garden was as warm as a summer's day, and he began to sweat under his heavy cloak.

Meg tugged on his arm, forcing him to move forward. The guests stood as one and watched them walk. Meg moved in time with the wedding march, her steps even and precise while he tried to walk beside her, nearly tripping over his feet due to nerves. His heart began to pound and his palms grew sweaty, but he managed to stay on his feet. The music stopped once they reached the table, and Castiel heard the rustling of fabric indicating that the guests had sat down again.

Azazel stood from his seat in the front row, walked behind the table, and clapped his hands together. Castiel stepped away from Meg, removed his cloak, and laid it at her feet. Stepping on top of it, he held his hands out for her and drew her onto it. Meg accepted his hands and stepped gracefully onto the material. Unlike him, her palms were free of sweat. Azazel smiled at them and then turned his attention toward the audience.

"Hello, friends and family, and other honored guests. We gather today to witness the joining of Prince Castiel Novak of Araboth to my daughter, Princess Megan Masters," Azazel said. "Children, you may begin your vows."

Just like in the woods, Meg went first, offering herself to him in marriage. He made his own offer. When he finished, Meg took a deep breath and reached for the objects on the table. Delicately picking up a round, undecorated silver locket, she held it out to him. "I offer you a piece of myself, so we may be together even when we are far apart."

He took the locket from her and slipped it over his head. He did not know if it contained her hair or blood or pieces of her nails, but it felt warm on his skin despite the chill in the air. The pendant settled over his heart.

Meg reached for her pair of stag antlers next. "I offer you food for your table, so that we may never go hungry, and with it a promise that I shall always provide for you." He took the antlers and laid them on his side of the table, where his own gifts for her waited. Meg smiled, picked up his sword, and held it out to him, balancing the blade on her upturned palms. The dark metal glimmered in the watery sunlight. She took another deep breath. "I offer you this blade, and with it the protection of my body, until the end of my days."

Castiel took the sword and kissed it. The metal hummed in his hands, happy to be back where it belonged. He secured it to his belt and took his own deep breath, reaching for the locket he had picked for Meg. It held a few strands of his hair and a dab of his blood. It was small and simply made, the pendant shaped like an octagon and the silver undecorated save for a ruby set in the middle of the pendant. "I accept your gifts, and I accept you as my wife. With this, I offer you a piece of me, so we may be together, even when we are far apart."

Meg took the locket. Her veil prevented her from putting the locket over her head, but he saw her tuck it in a hidden pocket of her gown.

Next, Castiel picked up a rabbit skin. When they were children, he and Meg had practiced their snares by hunting rabbits together, and he thought it a fitting gift. "I offer you food for your table, so that we may never go hungry, and with it a promise that I shall always provide for you."

Meg took the fur and ran her fingers over it.

Last, Castiel picked up the dagger he had bought for her when he'd turned eighteen. It hadn't been custom-made, not like his sword, but he had found it at a merchant's booth when he and Gabriel had taken a short trip to the world market, where travelers from all over the globe came to sell their wares or seek a new life. The blade was sharp, and the handle was made of bone inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There were small birds carved into it, giving the weapon a feminine feel, and was far nicer than the dagger they had used for their first marriage ceremony.

"I offer you this blade, and with it the protection of my body, until the end of my days," he finished. Meg took the blade and kissed it.

"I accept you as my husband," Meg said loudly.

Azazel stepped out from behind the table and moved between them, facing the guests. "Normally a ceremony would conclude here, but as this is a match made for love as well as for political reasons, the children have requested an additional, and more traditional, bit of ceremony be added."

He turned to face them and deposited a small, plain, silver cup between them on the table. It was chipped around the edges, and clearly very old, but was polished to a shine. Clearly, it had been in the family for a long time, and had seen many blood vows over the years. Castiel wondered absently if Meg had kept the wooden cup from their first marriage ceremony, or if it had been lost in the fight with Crowley.

Meg raised the dagger that Castiel had gifted her and cut her palm. Making a fist, she drained some of her blood into the cup. "You have my soul already. With this offering, I reaffirm our vow."

Castiel took the dagger and cut his own palm. The cold air bit into his skin, but the blood was hot and flowed strongly when he made his own fist over the cup. He stumbled over the new words, but managed to make his voice seem clear and strong. "You already have my soul. With this offering, I reaffirm our vow."

The guests were silent as Meg delicately plucked the cup from the tabletop and held it to his lips. Without fear to flavor it, her blood tasted almost sweet, and he swallowed the offering without gagging. He took the cup from her fingers once he'd had his swallow and held it to her lips. Just like in the woods, she drank their mingled blood without hesitation, and he gently rested the cup back on the table when he was finished. The cut on his palm stung. Azazel gestured for the two of them to join hands. Her bloody palm was slippery against his, and her hand was cold. He instinctively put his clean hand over hers to warm her flesh, and Meg rested her other hand atop of his in turn, completing the ceremony.

"What we have joined today, may no man tear apart," he declared. "Castiel Masters, you may now kiss your bride."

Castiel leaned forward and kissed her quickly. When they separated, the wedding guests cheered. Ruby smiled, stood from her seat, and threw a handful of confetti in the air. The paper bits hovered over their heads for a moment before exploding into a small shower of snowflakes.

Castiel squeezed Meg's hand and laughed as the guests clapped. Because they were made of magic, the snowflakes felt almost warm on Castiel's cheek. Meg raised her clean hand to grasp them and looked up in wonder, blinking away the snow that landed on her eyelashes. The guests clapped and whooped as Ruby threw a few more handfuls of confetti in the air, creating the fake snow for the guests as well.

Azazel waved his hand for quiet. "Now, if you will all rise and follow the servants to the hall, there will be food and dancing to celebrate the marriage. Our happy couple will be along in a moment, as soon as their wounds are seen to."

.

The feast was magnificent.

Castiel had never seen so much food in his life. There were trays laden with sweet puddings and cakes, platters of boar ribs and bacon and pork chops. He saw whole swans roasted in their plumage and wild turkeys and roasted pigs. There were other plates piled high with fruit, blackberries and apples and oranges and strawberries that had been carefully cultivated in the castle's glass gardens or imported from far away. Meg must have told her father about Castiel's nightmarish visions in the woods, because pears were the only thing missing from the buffet.

He and Meg shared the traditional stag's heart first, the two of them feeding each other from their forks. Both of them mostly stayed out of most of the dancing, Meg because of her stomach wound and Castiel because he had never quite mastered the steps. While Ruby had healed his foot, he still gave that as an excuse. His sisters saw right through it and managed to drag him out for a few dances, and Meg took a few turns at the slower ones with him, but Castiel was content to spend most of the evening sitting with his bride and watching the guests enjoy themselves. Meg enjoyed her place of honor at the head of the table, chattering with everyone who came to wish the two of them well and sampling every dish that the servants put before her.

When the feast began to wind down, Castiel noticed Hael and Tom out of the corner of his eye. They were laughing with each other, trying to slip out of the room unnoticed. Both of their faces were flushed from the rich wine and dancing, and Hael was beaming with happiness.

She caught his eye and froze, clearly thinking that Castiel would stop her from sneaking off. He held up one hand, fingers splayed, and pointed toward the door with his other.

"That's nice of you," Meg commented as she took a sip of her wine. Her face was flushed from the wine, and her eyes bright.

"I'll give them five minutes before I send Gabriel looking for them," Castiel said. "That's what your father would've given us, when we were younger. I don't see the harm in sneaking away for a few innocent kisses on a night like tonight. Romance is in the air, as your father would say."

Meg laughed. "Well, someone better pass the message onto Gabriel, because they picked the perfect time to sneak away."

Confused, Castiel looked around and swallowed hard when he noticed that the music had stopped and most of the guests were smiling and nodding to each other. A few of the women were giggling and lightly shoving each other as they looked as Castiel, and a few of the men were shooting Meg cautious looks.

"It's time to go to bed?" he guessed.

"And no one will come looking for them in the confusion," Meg told him. "Which means they'll be getting more than five minutes. Plenty of time for more than few innocent kisses, if they want. But Tom's a gentleman."

Castiel groaned and looked around for Gabriel when the fiddlers began to strike up a jaunty tune. Meg stood and patiently waited for her friends to surround them and tug them toward the bedroom. The women, unable to lift Castiel, simply poked and prodded and shoved him out the door. He heard Meg laughing in delight as Benny let out a cheerful roar and threw her over his shoulder.

The way to the bedroom was short, and he ignored the dirty comments being thrown his way by the women. Ruby was at the forefront of the group, her hand fisted in his tunic, while Anna and one of Meg's other cousins shoved him from behind. He heard Meg giving as good as she got from the men right up until Benny deposited her on the bed and playfully threw the blanket up over her face. She laughed at him as she pulled the blanket back down, throwing a punch in Benny's general direction.

"Maybe our kids can be as close as Ruby and Meg," he said to Castiel. "Do you want the musicians to stay outside the door for, or should I send them back down to the feast for a bit?" Traditionally, most of the musicians played outside of the bridal chamber for at least an hour to cover up any noise, while the rest of them retired back to the feast hall to play for any remaining wedding guests before they wandered off for the night, in order to give the bride and groom some privacy.

Castiel showed Benny to the door. "Tell them to go back to the feast, please. And I'd appreciate it if you could locate my sister and watch her for me. She snuck off with Tom right before the bedding."

Benny laughed. "Course she did. Romance is in the air tonight. I'll find her."

Castiel gave Benny a small smile. "I appreciate it."

Benny nodded and closed the door. The music stopped. Castiel took a deep breath and turned around to see Meg smiling from the bed.

"Help me get this thing off," she said, throwing the covers off and standing. "I can't undo the buttons on the back by myself."

"Still looking forward to the seaside?" he asked casually as he undid the pearl buttons that held her dress in place. Meg shrugged and stepped out of the dress, leaving her clad in nothing but her thin shift. Castiel swallowed hard.

Meg scooped up the dress and hung it over a chair. "About that. How do you feel about a little detour?"

"Detour?"'

She took off her veil and laid it on top of the dress. "Well, you're a big hero now, and you've got the magic sword. Ruby and I were talking, and dad got a report yesterday about a village that's been hassled by an ogre. It's about a day's detour from our country house. He was going to send some knights with us that would branch off and dispatch it, then come back to the country house to see us the rest of the way, but seeing as you're the new future king, I figured maybe we could take care of it."

Castiel blinked. "We just spent over a week fighting for our lives in an enchanted forest, and now you want us to go and kill an ogre?"

"Yes."

"You're crazy."

"It'll be fun."

Castiel sighed. "Fine. But that's it. Then we are going directly to the seaside and spending some quiet time together."

Meg smiled at him. Stepping closer, she wrapped her arms around his neck and stretched up so they were face to face. "That's my boy. But for now, let's go to bed. Tomorrow is another day."

Castiel smiled back and scooped her into his arms. Meg laughed and reached to pull back the covers on the bed, laughing again when he threw her onto the mattress.

"Caveman," she teased.

"You love me."

"That I do. Now, come here."

Castiel deposited his swordbelt on the table and stripped out of his tunic. He jumped into the bed with her, laughing when she laughed, and pulled the blankets up over both of them.

Meg bared her teeth at him. "Gonna kiss me, Mr. Masters?"

Castiel lowered himself over her so that their noses were touching. "Oh, I'll do more than that."

"Prove it," Meg challenged.

Castiel leaned over and snuffed the candle out. Tomorrow was another day. But for now, he fully intended to enjoy his wedding night.


End file.
